Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hello all! I'm hoping to get some feedback on my first build here. Overall I'm happy with this first attempt, but I think there's something a bit wrong with the final result.

My confidence kit 'works' (trip pot changes volume, sound makes it to the amp), but it's a bit noisy and if I jiggle it slightly it might cut out (jiggle it again, and voila, sound). I was hoping I could get some comments on my work to help determine if there is any obvious defect. I do have a multimeter, so checking things that way is next (once I get up to speed on how to use it If the pictures aren't clear enough I can try to snap alternatives.

I don't see any of the obvious signs of poor joints, but I might be totally missing something. I do think my connections to the jacks are a bit weak - I just freshened up on tinning the wire before doing those, so I'm sure that'll help a ton next time.

The board also seemed to get pretty 'wet' - the solder did seem to nicely flow where it was supposed to; is the wetness from the flux in the core? Looking again I see a couple spots that look dark - did I perhaps fry something?

Any review and advice would be hugely appreciated!! Thanks so much!!

I’d say the intermittent cutting out you experienced is due to cold solder joints to the IN & OUT jacks. The signal lug of the jack in the last photo is clearly a problem since there is solder on the wire and none on the jack’s solder lug. Probably the same goes for the ground lug but it’s too out of focus to say for sure.

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"It’s your soldering."

I think Stephen's right. Those jacks can be harder to get the solder to adhere to. You might have better luck if you scuff them with some sandpaper.

Also, make sure you're getting a really good, strong mechanical connection before soldering wires to jacks, pots, or switches, as described in Stephen's Tips For A Successful Build.

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Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

This is what I always do now with my builds. There's a coating on these I/O jacks that solder doesn't adhere to very well at all--it tends to just pool up on the surface. But a little light scuffing of the solder tab surfaces with sandpaper and it will flow onto them very readily.

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“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

My Website * My Musical Gear * My DIY Pedals: Pg.1 - Pg.2

Thanks all! I wondered about that after going back and reading Stephen's Tips (thanks for that post! ) because it was a HUGE difference trying to solder them than the board. The board just sucked up the solder and pooled it where it needed to go like magic. Fun stuff. But yeah the jacks were just hard. I'll try scuffing them up, and definitely will tin the lead wire too. I'm going to re-solder the jacks on the confidence board here to see if that cleans everything up.

Thanks so much!

Great! Make sure to update this post and let us know how it works out for you.

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Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Hello all! So I finally had some time to sit down with my confidence kit. I believe I've solved the cutting out issue, but it is still very noisy and distorted.

The first thing I did was remove the wires from the jacks.
Then I scuffed up the jacks with sandpaper.
I also tinned the ends of the wire.
It was much easier to solder this time, though I might have gone overboard on the solder compensating from the last effort.

Once re-complete I plugged it in, and no cutting in and out.

But as mentioned above I'm still getting a ton of noise and the signal is very distorted. Changing the volume on the trimpot doesn't affect the noise or distortion either. I'm picking up radio stations with this thing too, so I'm not sure what to expect.

I'd equate the noise to what you hear when you pick up one end of your guitar cable and make crappy contact with the jack before you get it plugged in. Except once I get everything plugged in, the noise doesn't subside.

I assume that the confidence kit is supposed to be quite? (At least within the expectations of any stompbox) And I'm also assuming the signal should be clean as well, not distorted. I'll post a few shots of the re-soldered jacks in case that's still where my issue is. Any feedback is immensely appreciated!!! I keep holding off on starting my Tremolo kit until I get this guy working

Sorry they're a bit blurry. The looked in focus on my phone

The solder on the jacks still looks cold.

Take a close look at the input jack in the photo below. Notice how the transition from the lug and wires to the solder is smooth. They sort of flow into each other. Compare that to yours and how the solder looks like a blob resting on the solder lug. There’s no smooth flow into one another. This is an indications of poor heat transfer from the iron to the lug. Make sure to clean your iron’s tip and then tin it properly. This helps promote heat transfer between them.

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"It’s your soldering."

^Yep. With jacks, I often make the mechanical connection, place the iron on the jack so that the tip is touching both the wire and the jack itself, then apply the solder, then leave it there for 3–5 seconds. It's very important that the iron is making very clean contact with the jack so it transfers heat.

In your case, you already have the solder there. So put a touch of solder on the tip of the iron (that's what Stephen means by tinning it, if you didn't know). Put the tip up against the edge of the blob, touching the jack firmly. Leave it there until your blob of solder melts into a flat puddle. You might have to add just a tiny bit of solder to get the blob to melt. It will likely fill most of the hole. That's ok. You have more solder on there than you need, but in this case, there's lots of space for it to go, so you probably don't need to remove it.

Hope that helps!

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Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Haha man these jacks! Okay will do - thanks again for the advice! This forum (and the people here) are really incredible. And man am I happy I got the confidence kit.

Take a look at the photo below--this is about what the solder joints on the I/O jack tabs should look like when the solder is "wetting out" properly on the surface of the tabs--smooth surface, no blobs:

_________________
“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

My Website * My Musical Gear * My DIY Pedals: Pg.1 - Pg.2

Well I've tried again and no joy: I'm still getting terrible noise, interference, and distortion. I've followed all instructions closely, hopefully there's still nothing obvious that I'm doing to make everyone beat their head against their desks

• I've made sure my iron is nicely tinned
• I seem to be getting clean contact with the solder pooling or wetting out
• Solder is not blobbing up or climbing up it iron tip
• The connections definitely look flatter and more consistent with the shared images
• I've also tested my battery to make sure that it's not the source - it checks out a-okay
• They still don't look quite as nice as the goal-images, but getting better I think

Here are a couple shots of the jacks; I made sure to get decent in focus shots this time As usual thanks for anyone who is up for commenting!





<edit: spelling>

That's much better, and it leads me to think those jack connections are almost certainly not the problem. But you'll want to trim away all that excess wire sticking out. As you get more practiced at this, you'll figure out just the right amount of insulation to trim away for a nice mechanical connection that gets covered by the solder without anything protruding. But for now just clip off the extra that's hanging out.

I'd say the next step is probably to go through and reheat all the joints in your build, allowing the solder to melt and then freeze again around the component leads. This is a pretty quick process; just keep your iron tip clean as you go. Your IC is not in a socket—if it were, I'd say remove it first—so just be careful around that component. Do one leg, then do a few other joints, then another leg, etc. You don't want to do all 8 in a row, or you might build up enough heat to damage it.

One of the moderators might have some more targeted advice, but honestly this is by far the most effective troubleshooting technique—one that even the most experienced among us still have to do sometimes.

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Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Well I just finished going through each join in the build and melt/re-freezed it around each component lead and still no luck with a solution. I tinned the tip before each connection made, but I still wonder if I made some of them worse - and I did have to clean off some solder that I mistakenly didn't get cleaned off the tip enough before going in to the joint.

I though I'd post a couple shots of the board again, as it stands now, from two different angles in case that might help identify any particular problem areas. I think I might move on to the next pedal soon here either way. While I haven't gotten this working, it's certainly built my confidence in soldering techniques. I also won't give up troubleshooting this in parallel though.

I think now would be a good time to make or buy yourself a signal probe. This will allow you to listen to the signal as it goes thru the circuit and determine where the noise is coming from.

http://buildyourownclone.com/collection ... gnaltester

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"It’s your soldering."

Oooh that sounds fun & informative... Yeah I'll definitely snag one of those!

So I've purchased a Signal Tester and have been able to do some tests. I think I've made some progress... I'm diving back into diagrams and learning more on how to read/interpret them, but this is what I seem to have determined so far. I think.

The signal starts to get dirty between the Transistor and R6/10k. I'm not entirely sure which component that points to - this is where I still lack some knowledge in reading the board and schematics.

I'm attaching an image with the two contact points that I get to that start bringing up noise and signal distortion. I can only imagine at this stage that one of these components is the problem? I did test the resistors before assembling, but I didn't test the Transistor.

If the signal is clean entering the transistor at its base (middle leg) and noisy/distorted at its output at the collector (which you marked with an arrow), that's a pretty strong indication that the transistor is faulty. I would recommend that you contact sales@buildyourownclone.com and ask for a replacement.

When you replace the original transistor, don't try to de-solder it from the PCB in one piece--this is tricky to do and the PCB eyelets can be damaged if it's not done correctly. Just clip off the legs and remove them individually, clean up the eyelets with a solder sucker (preferred) or good quality de-soldering braid, and install the new transistor.

_________________
“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

My Website * My Musical Gear * My DIY Pedals: Pg.1 - Pg.2