I fawt the bewster, and I 1

aen · Post by **aen** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:38 am

So I put anohter circuit into an enclosure tongiht. I wired the ground connectons together form the jacks on either side, and the power supply gorund to the circuit board, duh, which is also where the volume pot is grounded.

When I engage the pedal, I get No change, except a very minor loss of highs, and some noise, due to the circuit being all unsheilded and open so I can lok at it. Pot has no effect. NOW here is the fuked up part. If i connect the power supply ground to the audio jack's ground (as i would often do when constructing a pedal.. everything ends up with the same gorund) it goes dead silent.

WTF MATES.

I think the other two I built had this shared ground, as I have always had that work out before.

The other wierd thing is that a tiny tiny bit of signal gets thorugh one of the ohter failed boosters. I slammed one of the "no worky" boosters with a "yes worky" bbooster and a little bit of guitar came out into the POD.

anybody know what the fuck is going on?

I dont know why thee issues owuld crop up, I've built the booster before, and a fuzz with the exact same booster as the first gain stage.

Will · Post by **Will** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:52 am

Could it be:
-Power supply issue, as in a dead adapter, less or more then 9v, etc
-Footswitch issue; maybe only 1 side of the switch is working (causing the loading and loss of highs)
-Transistor: PNP instead of NPN, or just a bad bunch of parts (post pin voltages, too)(also, check the letter code on the case against a data sheet for the 2N5088/2N3904).
-Power Supply plug - no sound when connecting the plug ground sounds like what would happen if the positive/negative got mixed up. Are you using one of the round black 2.1mm plugs Small Bear sells?
-Resistor changes - you changed the ones on the transistor collector and emitter, does going back to stock values help? I think you were getting the fuzz effect because the 2N5088 is so high-gain to begin with.

If you post pin voltages I'll check them against one of my LPB circuits tomorrow.

aen · Post by **aen** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 4:38 pm

DuoSonicBoy wrote:Could it be:
-Power supply issue, as in a dead adapter, less or more then 9v, etc

no

DuoSonicBoy wrote: -Footswitch issue; maybe only 1 side of the switch is working (causing the loading and loss of highs)

no, i would get no sound ig the switch was broken

DuoSonicBoy wrote: -Transistor: PNP instead of NPN, or just a bad bunch of parts (post pin voltages, too)(also, check the letter code on the case against a data sheet for the 2N5088/2N3904).

NPN.

DuoSonicBoy wrote: -Power Supply plug - no sound when connecting the plug ground sounds like what would happen if the positive/negative got mixed up. Are you using one of the round black 2.1mm plugs Small Bear sells?

this is not the problem, as i also tried reversing the leads, same result.

DuoSonicBoy wrote: -Resistor changes - you changed the ones on the transistor collector and emitter, does going back to stock values help? I think you were getting the fuzz effect because the 2N5088 is so high-gain to begin with.

no, i don't have the exact values from the schem. Thus i had to compensate a little bit between the other resistors.
I have done this before, so I know the circuit SHOULD work. Ive breadboarded it probably 6 times, and built 2 working circuits.

this all started when i bought cock-sucking strip board. and no, the strips are not being brdged by stray wire or solder. this whole ground thing is utterly baffling. i have the exact same components in a working booster i built, in which the ground wires all meet up.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:24 pm

Is this with DC jack or battery clip?

I generally wire the DC jack ground to the ring of the input jack, then the sleeve of that jack to the board and also to the other jack. When the input jack is inserted the circuit is complete. I would suspect the wiring of the board to the switch and the pot to the board and the switch personally.

aen · Post by **aen** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:08 pm

I've tried both DC adaptor and battery.

Would splitting up the graound really make any difference in this situation though? I mean, once you plug in, it's all connected. That's how I had the ohter two wired, which is just standard for stomp boxes,a nd when I engage, I get the LED on (so the power is wokring at least) and a dead silence.

I might try again on some non fucking strip board, maybe its jinxed...

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:37 pm

I would just check out the circuit board and double check the transistor is the right way round and that none of teh resistor and cap legs are shorting against each other. Also what's your layout? You gotta be careful with stripboard that you don't make any connections you don't want to make. I like it, because it's what I grew up with and learnt to use, but I get why some people prefer padboard, but I hate it.

aen · Post by **aen** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:29 am

Ive always used this wierd mix between stripboard and "pad per hole" stuff, it has rows of like 5 holes all coppered together and some individual dots elswhere. it's a LOT cleaner.

Anyway, I'm going ot get FUCKED tonight, so no progress will be made on pedals of any sort.

Sublimedo · Post by **Sublimedo** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:34 am

have any pics? it may help.

aen · Post by **aen** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:46 am

Sorted. Stripboard=Caca. I built one tongiht on decent circuitboard, and lo and behold, motherfucker worked!

mewithoutus · Post by **mewithoutus** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:49 am

im guessing you dont need to send me anything now.

hooray! great jorb aen.

aen · Post by **aen** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:55 am

Corract! And it only takes like an hour, maybe less, so I can squeeze them out (relatively) quickly.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:20 am

Knew you'd get it sorted.

Stripboard can be a pain at times. I'm looking forward to my helping hands doobrie which I'll use to hold components nice and tight while I solder them, to save burning the crud out of my hands