Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hey guys!

I have seen a couple of posts about this issue but I thought I would go ahead and post my pictures so some of you could help me out.

Well, this is my first time building a pedal (other than the confidence boost, which I DID get working). I completely finished hooking everything up, but I cannot get ANY guitar sound at all when the pedal is engaged. The LED DOES come on via battery or power supply when the pedal is engaged. My guitar tone sounds normal when the pedal is off and is passing through fine, but the pedal is essentially a kill switch when I turn it on. When I mess with the volume and drive pots, there is no change at all in the pedal's performance; however, when I twist the tone pot to max I can hear a slight hiss (VERY slight, though)

My pots are in the correct spot and all of the components SEEM to be in the correct spot (BUT these things are easily missed sometimes). I did install the 47n cap in C6 right off the bat, since the instructions said this helped improve the tone knob a little. I thought I would go ahead and give that mod a try right from the start just for kicks.

So, are there any problems you notice right off the bat?? If not, should I just reflow the joints and go from there? How is my soldering? (I'm am very new at it) How could I improve it for the future?

Thanks for the tips! I look forward to hearing the feedback.

Clean up those big bulbs of solder. Cleaner soldering will put you in the right direction to a working pedal.

+1. Good chance that one of those blobby looking joints is a "cold" one and not making contact. Reflowing all the solder joints in a non-functioning build is always a good idea, if there's nothing else obviously amiss. Also look for long component leads that need to be trimmed down closer to the joint. You might also want to check the back of the tone pot to be sure that none of the solder joints underneath it are touching it and grounding out your signal.