Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hi, all.

I've been in the process of making a (possibly stupid) project for about a year (been waiting on a friend to paint my enclosure for me). The project is a 3 in 1 pedal, Phase Royal to a fuzz to a delay. The fuzz and delay were just boards I removed from already-made pedals (they weren't kits, so I'm not to blame if they don't work, ha ha), and the Phase Royal. I wired them up initially after building the Phase Royal in the supplied box - just hard-wiring input to output in sequence, still discrete DC jacks - and they worked just fine. I then removed the entire circuit to give the box to my buddy for painting. Now, some months later, the other two pedals work just fine, but the Phase Royale does not. I would not discount something "no longer connected", but before I go about doing that...

Here's what happens.

-bypass works
-pedal is receiving power from the DC jack - or, at least, it's getting to the board at the input pads
-pedal DOES pass audio when engaged, but no phaser... and yes, I've played with the mix knob, duh. The rest of the controls seem to have no effect either, although I haven't listened CLOSELY, because...
-LED doesn't come on either, EVEN THOUGH POWER IS GETTING TO THE BOARD.

It DID work, but now it doesn't. Not sure what I screwed up when I put it away, but apparently I did.

I'm waiting on a new tip before reheating joints, so I'll get to that.

In the meantime, assuming I wired it properly (because it WAS working), and before I start slinging pictures, any advance "test this stuff" advice would be welcome. I could probably redo one or two things with the tip I have, but I would want a new one for EVERYTHING on the board. As mentioned, it is definitely receiving power to the board... but beyond that "step 1", I'm not sure what "step 1a" would be.

Cheers!

Hi Budda. A couple of more questions...

Did you adjust the trim pot? You said you played with the mix pot, but didn't mention the trimmer.

What is the status of the build right now? Is it now in the new enclosure, wired with stomp switches and everything? That isn't quite clear from your post.

Your symptoms could be caused by a wiring mistake or bad connection on the footswitch. The LED may not be lighting because it isn't being grounded through the switch (maybe you made a mistake in the switch wiring, maybe there's a bad solder joint on the switch, maybe the switch got melted and went bad during soldering). If the LED is wired wrong, maybe other things are wired wrong too and that's why you're getting signal in effect mode but no phase. Does the mix knob do anything at all when the effect should be on?

You can take voltage readings from the LED terminals and from each of the op amps and FETs. I'll be happy to take a look if you post them here. If you run a search on this lounge, there are voltages posted for the phase royal to compare your to. However, since the circuit worked before, but you had it wired direct to the jacks/other circuits with no switches, it sounds like there's probably just an issue with the switch or switch wiring.

Just to clarify - I built the Phase Royal in the BYOC box as my "prototype" just to make sure it worked, and it worked awesomely. I then took that complete circuit, and instead of the 1/4" jack (well, the input 1/4" jack is still there because the phaser is the 1st in the series) hard-wired the o/p to the i/p of the following pedal. All other connections - stomp switch, i/p 1/4" jack, grounding, etc. remained the same. At that point, I dropped everything into the "new" enclosure and verified that it all worked fine, removed the circuit entirely, then gave the empty box to my buddy to paint. Months later, the box returned to me, but now the Phaser is being weird.

I did not think of trying the trimpot only because the LED wasn't lighting up either. Even so, it's where I had previously set it, so even if the circuit is not quite right, I should be getting SOME sort of "affected signal" from the pedal, not just the "dry" as it seems to be. I can try that.

I've melted other stomp switches earlier on in building, and I'm fairly confident (99%) that this shouldn't be the issue. I've tested the terminals and things seem to be switching the way they should in there. I've rechecked that the switch wiring to that part of the board is accurate.

LED should be wired right - I can power it up when applying current to the pads. Even so, I will double-check it, but that hasn't changed since it was working.

I was hoping for a "first stage" opamp or FET to test, but that's just me being lazy. I guess I'll go through them tonight.

OK - sorry I misunderstood your post. Your situation pops up from time to time: a working build is removed from an enclosure and when it's reinstalled; no worky. It's usually because an iffy solder joint went bad (cracked/lost continuity) while the pcb was being handled. The solution is almost always redoing all of the solder joints, both wire and component connections. It's typically much harder to diagnose where the problem is happening (although I'm happy to take you through that), than to just use the shotgun approach and reheat all of the joints since that's where the problem lies anyway.

Agreed.

I was just hoping to get whatever I have left out of this tip, maybe redo one or two things, and get 'er going since everything else works. Should have the new tip tomorrow anyway, and can then reflow EVERYTHING... bother.

The best tool to diagnose this circuit is the audio probe. Do you have one of those? With that you can isolate the bad spot and just focus on a few components.

No "scope", just a multi-meter.

Not a scope, a probe. It's just a glorified capacitor and some wire.

http://buildyourownclone.com/probe.html

AH... noise input dongle. Gotcha. I'll see if I can rig something up.

It came to me in a flash, though - I know I replaced the stomp pedal somewhere along the line. I'm thinking all of a sudden that maybe I wired the switch to the board in a "mirror image", looking at the instructions from the wrong side of the board. I'm pretty sure that's not the case... but I'll see if that's a possibility tonight too.

Okay, weirdness.

IC1: (1 4V) (2 4V) (3 1V) (4 g) (5 7.8V) (6 oscillates from immediately 1.2V to immediately 7V roughly every 1 second) (7 2V) (8 2V)
IC 2 (back side?): (1 goes from 3.7V to 5V) (2 same as 1) (3 2V) (4 g) (5 7.8V) (6 7.8V) nothing on legs 7 and 8
IC 3: (1 4V) (2 4V) (3 3.8V) (4 g) (5 7.8V) (6 7.8V) (7 4V) (8 4V)
IC 4: (1-3 all at 4V) (4 g) (5 7.8V) (6-8 all at 4V)
IC 5: (1-2 4V) (3 3.8V) (4 g) (5 7.8V) (6-7 4V) (8 3.7V)

FETs are all seeing a consistent 4V on leg 1. Should I measure the other legs?

Looks like I'm getting weird voltage readings - at least compared to other measurements I've seen.

Let me know what next...

What are you using to power the circuit? I ask because you have a serious voltage problem with your build. Pin 8 of all the op-amps should have 9V on them. "Leg 1" of the JFETs is the Drain (the Emitter for Q7). They should all have 1/2 the supply voltage on them. In my Phase Royal the supply voltage is right at 9V and Vref measures at 4.3V on all the transistors.

I would suggest going over the power supply section of the circuit to confirm all the components are correct. The PS section consists of the following...

D1, D2, R37, C16 and C17

I just thought of something this morning, cued by your question. In my build, I didn't plan on a battery, so I just hooked up the DC. For this test, my PS was inconveniently located far from my computer (where I was reading your post), so I just alligator-clipped a 9V battery to the DC terminals. I tested the pads on the board (at the top/opposite end from the stomp switch, so NOT at the battery pads) and it was receiving 9V. Should it matter that I hooked up a battery instead of a PS? I can't tell from the circuit diagram if the two power inputs are on different routes.

As for the JFETs - I just have an analogue multi-meter. The "Vref" is probably fine - they were all a titch above 4V, so probably right around your 4.3V or 1/2 9V criterion, so I don't think I will worry too much about that for now. The ICs are definitely getting something wonky.

I will go over the PS section tonight. I KNOW everything on the PCB is correct, as I have not replaced anything there since it worked - in other words, maybe a component has died, but I know I put everything in the right place initially. I DID replace the stomp switch, but I verified yesterday that I wasn't dumb enough to wire it in a mirror-image pattern. I have to imagine that something has fallen in and is shorting something to something, but the board looks clean...

Balls.

To power the circuit directly like that you would need to connect the + from the battery to the right most + adapter jack solder pad (closest to the output jack). Leave the other + solder pad empty.

Are you certain you took your voltage readings from the correct pins of the op-amps? I see that you got 7.8V (which is about a volt lower than it should be) on pin 5. This could be pin 8 if the pins weren't counted correctly.

Looks to me like you got the pinout wrong. You had 7.8 volts on pin 5 of each chip, but I bet that's actually pin 8. Here's the pinout on all DIP chips:


Taking pinout into consideration, your voltage readings look good on ICs 4 and 5; everything else has an issue. IC1 pin 3 should be the same as pins 1 & 2; your low voltage is either a reading mistake or R3 has a connection problem. IC3 pin 7 should be the same as pins 1-3, 5, & 6. IC1 pins 5 & 7 should having oscillating voltage like pin 6. IC2 pins 5-7 should basically be dead with just small amounts of remnant voltage in the milliamps.

Retest calling out the voltages on the correct pins please.

And take voltages from the LED; make sure the square LED pad has voltage and the round LED pad gets grounded when the switch is in effect mode.

Another fairly common thing I've seen is sometimes when these BYOC circuits are mounted into different enclosures, if the pot holes don't line up exactly right, tightening down the pots to the enclosure will cause the pcb to twist or distort a bit, which tends to kill something in the signal path. Make sure the pcb isn't under pressure and the back of the pots aren't shorting to something on the back of the pcb. For example, if you loosen the pots and the LED comes on, that's your problem.

Sorry, yes - I flipped the pinout numbering on 5-8. Reverse those measurements and it is what it is.

I will check R3 tonight. Hopefully that's what the deal is, because as I said - I haven't "reset" anything since the working build.

LED had NOTHING going to it that I could see, but I didn't try to use the chassis ground, just the LED pad ground. Maybe there's a weird short in there, so I'll try using the chassis ground and the + pad, see what's up.

Thanks for the hints on the correct IC voltages.

And overall - it's awesome to have the forum, and in particular you, helping out with fools like me.

Cheers!

No sweat man, it happens.


Okay, but definitely remeasure all the IC voltages. There are other things wonky in there.


Yep. Measure chassis ground to the square pad. But also make sure you have ground (continuity) from the round pad to the chassis when the switch is in effect mode/no connection to ground when in bypass.


Thanks - we're glad to help.

Cool.

Definitely wonky things in there on the ICs, but the readings I got are accurate - once you reverse the pinouts. That's why R3, then we'll see...

Okay.

Rechecked ICs. Don't know what I did with IC3 and my readings, but it seems fine now.

ICs 1 and 2 are still doing what I said - except correct for the pinout and a correction on IC1 where I wasn't patient enough.

IC1: (1-2 ~ 4V) (3 2V) (5 oscillates) (6 ~2v) (7 oscillates) (8 7.8V)
IC2: (1-2 oscillate) (3 ~4V) (5-6 nothing) (7-8 7.8V)

Tested R3, looked good right around 470 ohms. Reflowed it anyway along with the pins for IC1. Then the test results I just listed.

Tested LED. Somehow ground (round) is not connected to chassis ground with the effect in, but it IS connected when the effect is out. With the effect in, hot (square) is receiving voltage.

Rechecked the stomp - 100% right.

Pics attached. Note that the "silver" between R18 and Q7 is just a reflection - there is no loose solder there.

Balls balls.

Bah.

Apparently I wasted everyone's time - maybe.

LED is still not working. Maybe I've just reversed the leads somewhere along the line - I don't know, I guess that's the next attempt.

I THOUGHT I'd set the trimpot, but maybe it got nudged along the way. In any case, I plugged in the pedal and cranked the volume and listened for noise - and there was the barest little "shimmer" there. Played with the trimpot - voila, phaser.

When I get my shiny new tip tomorrow, I'll see if flipping the LED leads doesn't fix 'er. Otherwise, I'll just have to turn the pedal on and strum to see if it's on. In any case, the sound works even if the LED doesn't.

Good night to me, and thanks for all the help you guys. Enjoy the crappy iPhone pics anyway.

One last question...

A buddy of mine just showed me his - Phaser, that is - and it's the second time now that I'm seeing the blue (ceramic?) caps in place of the green "chiclet"-looking things (mica?). Just curious as to the switch, why, does it matter in this application...

Sweet!

I'm a little confused as to whether the LED was working before or not and I'm a little confused on your terminology regarding LED voltages (not sure what effect in and effect out means). You can eyeball it and tell if it's in backwards or not. The negative side of the LED has a flat spot on it. The lead on that side should go into the round hole. If the side with the flat spot goes into the square hole, the LED is backwards.

Also, you can trace the ground circuit for the LED. The round LED pad connects to pcb pad 1. Pad 1 connects to footswitch lug 1 through a wire. Footswitch lug 2 is grounded. When the circuit is in effect mode (not bypass), footswitch lugs 1 and 2 are connected, grounding the round LED pad. Using the continuity function on your DMM, you can trace this entire ground path to see if there any problems along the way.

BYOC's parts suppliers will sometimes change cap types on them. The green chicklet caps you have are Xicon polyester film caps, the blue caps you see are box metal film caps (also polyester). In a circuit like this with no signal gain, it's next to impossible to hear a difference between these two cap types. Some people prefer the chicklets, some prefer the boxes. I will say that the chicklets are much closer to the caps found in original Phase 90's...

The LED was working before, but in my build I've routed the LED "somewhere not right on top of the pad". As such, I'm running wires from the pads to the LED. "Effect in" means when the effect is working, "effect out" the opposite. It's nice that you've explained to me the footswitch grounding method - although I've double-checked the wiring UMPTEEN times now, it will still be nice to mechanically verify that the switch is right with the multi-meter.

Not as concerned anymore, though, since the noise is working. Getting the LED going should just be a walk in the park now.

Cheers!

Maybe too many knobs is the problem.

Maybe I fried the LED when I was testing different parts of the box - I don't know. Just waiting for a fresh DC jack - I think I got paint in one of the three jacks because the connection was iffy, so I figure I'll just replace them all now. Those are the red shrink-wrapped leads at the top. Learning experience!

On the left of the pedal is the Phase Royal. Middle section is a Blackout Effectors Fix'd Fuzz that I modified (before Kyle did it!) to have the internal trimpots on the outside, plus changed the section toggles to stomp switches (the four on the bottom side). Right side is a Subdecay Echobox. I just wired them all together internally, but the power supplies are all separate. Friend of mine painted it for me.