Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hey everybody,

Very much a rookie at building petals, this is my first kit build I’ve done a few mods previous.

It took me about a day but I finished putting together the orange distortion kit. Hooked it all up connected it to the guitar and amp and nothing. When the foot switch is engaged it cuts the guitar signal, also the LED does not illuminate. When I hit the foot switch again my guitar signal comes back.

Going to post a picture below, would appreciate someone telling me what I need to be looking for to get this working.

Looking forward to the responses, I enjoyed this process so don’t want it to be a frustrating end

Hi, and welcome to the forum. In order to be helpful, we'll usually want to see a photo of the solder side of the board as well. This may require unsoldering the DC jack, but you're going to need to do that for the likely solution to your problem anyway…

If you're getting no LED and no signal, it's possibly a problem with the DC jack wiring. Check to see that your two (+) wires are connected to the correct tab of the DC jack. (I can't tell for sure from your photo.) This can be quite tricky for new builders. Look carefully at the illustration and photos in the instructions and see that yours is rotated the same way before making the connection.

While it's out of the enclosure, snap that photo of the underside of the board in case it still doesn''t work!

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Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Thanks for the quick response.

I'll get stuck into that as soon as I get home from work, and post an update.

Thanks in advance

Your wiring could be improved. Next time, strip the end of the wire, and then tin it first before inserting it into an eyelet or solder terminal. This will prevent it from fraying and having so many errant strands potentially causing shorts.

Anyhow...it looks like you didn't hold your soldering iron to the solder terminals of the jacks long enough, particularly on the input jack. It looks like the wire on the ring (which is the actual power on/off switch) could come off if you tugged on it. Reheat those joints till you see "flowout"....that means when the surface tension on the solder breaks, and the solder actually adheres to the terminal and it's not just a round blob sitting on top.

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*patience is a virtue*

Please do not PM me. email is prefered. keith@buildyourownclone.com

+1 on that. I felt that my soldering on the underside of the pcb was fairly neat. But I definitely wasn't too impressed with the job I did of wiring the foot-switch and jacks. Definitely something I need to work on.

It's probably worth re-doing right?

It's possibly worth redoing. Even if it works as is (let's say the DC jack is just wired wrong and you correct that), you may run into problems in the future because those blobby joints are more prone to break off.

Here's a tip for next time: before soldering jack tabs, scuff them with some coarse sandpaper. The solder will flow onto it better. But turning up the heat on your iron and holding it longer should make it flow out, as Keith said.

_________________
Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Right.

So I tidied up some of the wiring around the pier and In out jacks. I’m confident there nothing touching. (Pictures below)

However, plugged back. This time no guitar singal when switch is un/or engaged until.......

I was strumming in frustration then I heard a distorted sound come through. Then immediately cut out.

I started fiddling around with the pots and found that if i put some downward pressure on them the pedal functioned. Distorted and clean sound.

So, are the pots loose? Do I need to resolder? Am I completing some sort of connection loop by touching the pots?

Also LED still not illuminating






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UPDATE.

Added more solder to the pots connections on the PCB.

It worked.

Effected and non effect sound working as it should.

Thanks for getting me this far guys.

There is a very high pitched static / squeal while the effect is engaged? Any ideas how to eliminate this?

Also

LED still not working


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Your LED is installed backwards. The round side should be closer to the DC jack, and the flat end closer to the foot switch. Flip it around, should start working.

I'm not sure I understand your situation. You said "Effected and non effect sound working as it should", but you also said there's a high pitched static/squeal. Did it work for a while and then start making noise?

_________________
Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Thanks I’ll try that for the LED.

Sorry i should be clearer.

So the pedal works now. My clean sound comes through when bypasses engaged, distortion sound comes through when foot-switch is engaged.

As soon as I engage the pedal and distortion comes through, that’s when I hear the high pitch static / squealing. That noise is not present when the pedal is not engaged


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LED us up and working.

Been playing around with it the last day it sounds pretty good. Just like the DS1 sound I was going for.

I still have a high pitched whistling / fizzing sound when the pedal is engaged, so I’d love to figure out how to eliminate that.

Anyway here’s some pictures.

Called it the dumpster dodger as it nearly got thrown there several times. Great kit, poor builder. Much to learn




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I'm not sure what would be causing that. If it were me, I would carefully reflow all the solder joints again, maybe particularly around the IC. And if that didn't solve it, I'd use a signal tester/audio probe to try and figure out where the sound appears in the circuit.

Other mods may have a better idea of specific parts to check.

_________________
Scott

My band, Austin Hollow