watt, volt, degrees, preset, linear, log??????? WHAT????

[madstayen]

Swopped the res. with 2M2, nothing. Then I put 1M+1M+220k in series, also nothing. Get sound with effects off, as soon as I hit the switch, SILENCE. Yes I did it myself, I used Post office red(spray can), then with heat resistant black(because it was all that I had) I lightly sprayed over the red while it was still wet. Then wait to dry, and gave it 5 coats of clear(lacquer in a can). I tried signal red, also looks good, a bit more orange, but I prefer the darker candy color.

[madstayen]

Sorry, I coated the enclosure completely with the red, then only did the specks with the black whilst the red was still wet(ish). You can use any type of black I suppose. I actually wanted to use satin black, but as I said, was all that I had available, plus it was 02:30 in the morning, you won't get a hardware and paint store open in S.A that time of the morning.

[duck_arse]

ok. well, as we say around here, "well, bugger me!"

I would have *SWORN* you said at the early you were using BF244B. I can't *IMAGINE* why the bf244 is so contorted compared to the bf245. looks like we've swingsed and roundaboutsed on that one.

BUT, the good news. leave the 2M2 alone, put it back to the single red-red-green, I've spotted where most your signal is going. nearly all your pots are the wrong values. the "gain" pot should be 1M log (1,000,000 ohms), yours is 1k log (1,000 ohms). that will suck down your first stage output, and make the 2M2 read different to its marking.

your "bass" pot is also 1k log, as is your "master volume". both should be 1M log (1MA). your "presence" pot is the correct value, and I can't see a value on either the treble or mid pots. treble should be marked 250kA, being the standard value, or perhaps 200k audio, or a combination of both. the mid pot should be marked 20kB, perhaps 25k. the "B" means linear.

convention says logarithmic pots are marked "A", and linear pots are marked "B". circuits marked "L" might mean log or lin, and unless another pot of the other curve is used on the same drwaing, you can really only guess.

another thing I've spotted, I think, is you have a paralleled pair of 1k8 resistors on your led. this will probably blind you and chew through your battery at the same time. I use 15k~22k with superbright leds, and everyone is happy. so now you've got something to go on with, let us know if you have any more probs.

and I'll never again doubt the wise words of jdansti again, even if I get his name wrong ever time.

[madstayen]

Gooooood! I checked the mid is 22k, and the treble is 220k, so that is good. just the other pots that is incorrect then. I understand what you say about the 1k8's, I am planning on fitting a perspex base, and then put 3 or 4 ultra-brights in. Would look good when the effect is on, so I will play around with that then, but for now I just at least want to get the bloody thing working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will order the new pots tonight, so by next week it will be sorted. Will keep you guys posted. Thanx a lot fellas.

[Jdansti]

>and I'll never again doubt the wise words of jdansti again...

I wouldn't recommend that!

[duck_arse]

but can I keep calling you jdsanti?

how about "late for dinner"?

[Jdansti]

Sure. It sounds Italian enough. . The jdansti stems from back in the 90s when I combined part of my name with my company's name. It sounds more Polish than Italian.

And you are correct, please never call me late for dinner!

OR

[duck_arse]

I computer-screen-dickslexic your name to jdsanti. also kipper to klipper and from his name to notchentelli, nothing I can do about that. don't think I can mess your name as far as shirley, though.

[madstayen]

Okay, I got the 1M pots today. Put them in, circuit is working, set the trimmers to 4V5. Couple of small hick-ups, though! I get a funny squealing sound when the effect is of(bypassed). With the effect on its working great, except I get an extremely "scratchy" type of feedback, don't even have to hit the strings, I could just tap against my guitar base, then it makes this crappy scratchy patchy! How do I eliminate this??? And the LED's doesn't switch off when I unplug from the input. What could the cause of this be? And also, there's very little bass in the effect, and when I turn the gain down completely, there's no sound, I recon this isn't supposed to be like this, yeah? Here's what I changed since last time: Put extra 2 LED's in for the perspex base, swopped the first 3 (Q1,Q2,Q3) BF245B's for J201's that I wangled from a friend of a friend of a friend's, eh, something like that . So I'm running J201's up to Q3, then Q4 and Q5 is BF245's. Or should I just revert to BF245's?

[madstayen]

Fiddled with the trimmers a bit, got the scratchy sound eliminated, bass is good, just the LED's needs to be sorted. Will do that tonight. Is it possible to omit the battery terminal completely? I am never going to use it anyway. 

[Jdansti]

Yes. I omit the battery connection on most of my builds.

[madstayen]

Do I not have to bypass anything? Just remove it from the DC jack and input jack?

[madstayen]

This is how I fixed the LED on/of circuit.
The 2nd one is from DIY
No matter what you do, as long as your power comes from the DC jack, the circuit is always on, with the minor change I made it excludes the bat terminal, and re-root the wiring to break the circuit when the input jack is unplugged. I pick up an extreme hummmmmmmm now when the effect is on. And another thing, if I zero a pot, say the volume for instance, and turn it slowly to the max, the volume increases very slowly, then all of a sudden it increases extremely fast(that last 1/16th of a turn). That confuse me. Why is that? Is that the properties of the 1MA pots? Can I swop it then for another type/resistance, maybe put a linear one in???

[madstayen]

How much current is this circuit drawing? What psu is best for this circuit? How many mA, how many Watts?

[madstayen]

[Jdansti]

In your upper photo, the only thing that's happening when you plug the guitar cable in is you're turning on the LED. You're not affecting the power to the board.

Normally, people don't switch the board power off and on. It's controlled by the power jack and would be wired like this:



If you really want to control the board power from the guitar jack, you could do it like this:



Keep in mind that this wiring can be done several ways and  everyone has their own favorite way of doing it.

[duck_arse]

geeze, even yr picture is blinding me ......

so, working, and with j201's? well done. swapping the j201 and bf245 may give more gain or less gain. you can only try them, but you'll have to re-trimm each time. have you got/have we asked you before/can you see why - a breadboard yet madstayne?

from your description of yr volumes, it sounds like you may have them wired backwards. if you had lin pot instead of log, they would go loud fast, then not change. maybe some new photos of those pots?

turning the gain pot down puts the wiper to ground, so you won't get anything past that stage. it's working to spec. is it still squeeling when bypassed? if so, it might need a different switch arrangement, with the first stage input switched to ground when bypassed.

[Jdansti]

Yes, grounding the board input during bypass might help. Here's a good wiring scheme. Notice in this method that the LED ground is switched instead of the power.

I'm just posting the link since the owner doesn't allow reposting the image.

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/switch_lo_3pdt_ig_dcjack.gif?phpMyAdmin=78482479fd7e7fc3768044a841b3e85a

[madstayen]

will post new photos tomorrow. I like the wiring method in that link, I'll try it out, different root to powering the LED. I think maybe I should've wired the ground of the volume, and mid pot straight to the input or output jack, instead of wiring it to the pcb ground? Oh, when I touch the gain, I get feedback, only withe the gain pot, weird! @ Jdansti: And I understand now what you posted earlier about not switching the board on, and off. Makes sense. Okay, I still have only my Boss ME-70 power supply, and my Boss HM-2 power supply. I need to build one with the correct amperage for this circuit. How do I go about doing that ex, measuring the circuit to see how many current it draws, and then getting the right schematic for the PSU? @ duck_arse: No, I don't have a breadboard, should I? Ah, I see, to build it first, sort all the Shite out, get it to work perfectly, then put it on a pcb Very good idea, will order tomorrow . Can I use/re-use a breadboard, or is it a once off thing?

[duck_arse]

as shirley bassey once said, "breadboards are forever". probably, I should be banned from this forum, but anyway ..... you plug the parts into the breadboard, do something interesting, then pull the parts out, and start again. the same parts over and over build a different circuit each time. no soldering, almost. no burnt boards, no cutting boards, etc etc. also no built projects you find you don't like. search for breadboard and small bear on this forum, you'll see.

current draw with this circuit should be faily low, probly less than 20mA, **EXCEPT** for your led current, which is a different matter all together. if you disconnect your leds, set your multimeter to the "mA" range and insert it between the red battery lead and the board, you can measure the current draw. then for fun, you can measure the led current, which will be many times greater.

you can attach a wire to the body of the gain pot, connected to the grounded lug, and it might improve your squeels some.