Broken pedal help please.

[spaz21387]

So I built a GGG green russian big muff from a kit. It worked perfectly for about a month. Then stopped putting out sound. The led powers on when you step on the switch, And I get sound when I turn off the pedal. Checked all wires and solder joints. All of them seem to be good. Any ideas for my next step?

[bongomania]

Did you change to using a different power supply? When it worked before, was it in a different chain of pedals or powering than it's in now?

[Aquila0507]

Also check the jack placements. They easily short out when touching the case. Happened to me when I first tried to plug in.

[spaz21387]

I ran it on 9 volt batteries all the time. And always used it by its self no other pedals. I pulled it out of the case and it still doesnt seem to work. Did I fry some parts? can they break without looking damaged at all?

[bongomania]

Yes, some components can fail or get damaged without "looking bad". I'd also +1 what Alquila said about the jacks--check them by eye and with a continuity tester to be sure there are no unwanted shorts/contacts between conductive parts of the jacks and parts of anything else.

Also look for any solder joints that are pale gray or cloudy looking, instead of bright silver looking.

[Mattbass97]

Twiddle with the knobs on the pedal?

[spaz21387]

Originally Posted by Mattbass97

Twiddle with the knobs on the pedal?

Ha im not an idiot. That was the first thing I tried. So How would you check for bad components, A multi-meter?

[bongomania]

First I'd use the continuity tester function on the multimeter to check the thing about the jacks, as well as any other wires or solder joints that might be "too close" to some other conductive spot. Second I'd look for bad solder joints, by eyeball. Only after re-flowing the solder in any questionable joints would I start to worry about bad components.

[loopmantra]

watch out for the 'cold soldering'...if you place to much,or to ....damn...i can't find the word in english....anyways,the soldering job needs to be clean,small contact,and fast..
cold soldering is when you have a mountain of metal soldered,where you needed a spot only...do you know what i'm saying? if you look into any/all of the pedals you'll see there's a very small amount of soldering metal on any/all connections...if you put to much,and if you smudge it(that';s the word ha!),as in not keeping it clean,you will have problems...

[cheapbasslovin]

Pics man!!!

If you have done a few crappy solder joints, someone around here is usually competent to say, "Hey that there looks like a crappy solder job. Fix those spots first."

I am leaning away from the jacks since it works fine in bypass and the LED lights up normally. If the jacks were shorting I would expect it to cut out sound whether bypassed or not. If the power jack was shorting I'd expect the LED to dim or not work at all.

[spaz21387]

IMAG0158 by spaz21387, on Flickr


IMAG0159 by spaz21387, on Flickr


IMAG0160 by spaz21387, on Flickr
Heres one of the case because im proud of it. The free hand paint job turned out good.

IMAG0161 by spaz21387, on Flickr

[spaz21387]

I also removed resistor number 26 because it was bad so that will need to be replaced.

[cheapbasslovin]

There looks to be a lot of suspect solders on that board to me. I suggest you get a new tip on your iron and get something to clean your iron between solders (I use steel wool with decent success).

My soldering looks TONS better since I started cleaning my tips between solders. Even a beat up tip can solder decent if it is clean (better if it is new, though).

Most of your solders should look like the one on the resistor right below C4. A nice shiny cone leading to the wire penetration.

[spaz21387]

I think I figured it out the diode number 1 is also bad. I will order new diodes and a 1.5 meg resistor and it should work...