Troubleshooting my project

[Bassman203]

I've been working on this pedal for way longer than I should have, and I finally decided to buckle down and finish it maybe two weeks ago, and it was done in about two hours. But I plugged it in and it only worked bypassed.

I've gone through testing all the connections with my multimeter set to ohms. Seems to show whether a connection is there pretty accurately. The only place where I get no reading is on three capacitors that are in a row. Do you think they don't work? Should I get replacements? Is it normal for them not to have a reading on the multimeter? Any suggestions are welcome and wanted.

Here's some pics
The Capacitors


Closer Look


The back (then vertical line to the right where the solder is in little lumps over each whole is where it is. I was desoldering it when I decided to take pictures, so the soldering job looks crappy, but I checked the line and it connects, just not through the capacitors)


And here is my multimeter in case there is another setting I should use.

[cheapbasslovin]

Capacitors are, by their nature, not electrically connected from one lead to the other. I don't think that checking for ohms is going to be the most effective method to troubleshoot. Somewhere here I heard about an audio tap, where you have one end of a cable attached to a 1/4" plug, and the other end free. You run a signal into the pedal, plug the 1/4" plug of the tap into an amp and start tapping through the signal path point by point until you find the place where the signal stops sending to the amp. Fix that component. Continue the troubleshoot as necessary.

I've never troubleshot a bad circuit, so don't hold what I say as gospel.

[Bassman203]

ok, thanks for the tip.

I should have realized there would be no connection on a capacitor, but I the other three I tested had one. But after what you said, I decided I should try retesting them, and I noticed that it only worked when I pressed it down against the metal chassis. I quickly threw some tissue in between the circuit board and the chassis to insulate it thinking it could be shorting the circuit... and, nope still doesn't work.

Hopefully I'll think of something else...

[Bassman203]

Also, a signal is showing up on the electrolytic capacitor. Should that happen?

[Bassman203]

I think I found it! I was missing a connection between g-17 and g-19, so first thing tomorrow I'm gonna put some solder there and fix it. Aww heck I'll do it now!

[cheapbasslovin]

I would expect that if you got a signal on the electrolitic it was either:

A) a really high ohm reading from leakage current or

B) in parallel with some other component.

But I've little experience here so I could be wrong.

You should know that I've pretty much expired my audio circuitry knowledge in the two posts on this thread and would be hesitant to give any further information. Sorry and good luck.

Edit::: Nevermind and right on!!!

[Bassman203]

WOO HOOO!!!

I'm so freaking happy! Didn't want to heat up my soldering iron as it is well past 12:00 am in my parts of the world and I would probably dose off and burn my self, so I stripped some wire (and cut myself, good thing I didn't go with the soldering iron (: ) and looped it around the missing connections, plugged it in, and it worked! I quickly grabbed my piece of crap danelectro amp as it has a 1/8 head phone out so I don't have to go searching for my converters and I could avoid waking my parents, brother, and sister up, plugged in my friends crappy squier guitar that he let me borrow, and despite the usual terrible tone I get from that guitar and $15 amp, I was really amazed by the fuzz I was getting (I never mentioned it was a fuzz/boost did I?) I tried it with my squier bronco too and was thoroughly surprised when it sounded decent on bass and through a guitar amp. I cranked up the tone nob and it sounded even better.

I can't wait till tomorrow when I solidify the connections, add in the switches that I initially didn't connect to the circuit that switch between fuzz and clean boost (one controls germanium fuzz, one silicon), and try it out with my jazz 24 through my genz benz/avatar halfstack.

This is my first pedal and I already want to make more and more!