3PDT/Power Wiring, what's wrong with this picture?

[chuckfalcon]

After hours and hours and HOURS of wiring, testing and Rewiring, I have hit a wall and have no idea what the answer is.  Maybe you all can help me.

The circuit is a Univox Superfuzz, and it works perfectly before I hook it up to a 3PDT.  Here is how I have it wired




>When I engage the effect I hear a "tick tick tick" sound.

>When the effect is bypassed I hear clean guitar as I should.

>When I remove the wire from "input sleeve" to "3PDT lug" and engage the effect, I hear the fuzz like I should and the switch will work perfectly engaging and disengaging the effect.

>When I replace the 2.1mm barrel with a 9v Battery clip AND battery and engage the effect the battery starts to get hot, and I hear "tick tick tick".

I wired it up like this because its one of the many examples I found on the internet.  Why is this happening?  What is wrong with my wiring?  PLEASE HELP ME.  I am going crazy.  Well not really, but MAN it is irritating.

[Ben Lyman]

It looks like you are grounding your +9v when you activate the switch. I'm pretty sure there is no reason to have +9v connected to the switch. Slide an LED into that spot so it lights up when you engage the effect. Does that make sense? I'm sure someone else can explain better than me

[bloxstompboxes]

It looks like you are grounding your +9v when you activate the switch. I'm pretty sure there is no reason to have +9v connected to the switch. Slide and LED into that spot so it lights up when you engage the effect. Does that make sense? I'm sure someone else can explain better than me

Agreed. The two middle pins from the top down are connected in one switch position. It is shorting your power if you actually have it connected this way.

[chuckfalcon]

It looks like you are grounding your +9v when you activate the switch. I'm pretty sure there is no reason to have +9v connected to the switch. Slide an LED into that spot so it lights up when you engage the effect. Does that make sense? I'm sure someone else can explain better than me

Hey, thank for the quick reply.  Here is the diagram I based mine off of. 


The only things I didn't add were the battery clip and the LED.  So, if I were toput an LED in between the +9V and the lug on the 3PDT, it would fix my problem?

[Ben Lyman]

There's the LED, it's pretty important 

You can clip that wire entirely if you don't want an LED.
The only thing we use the 3rd row of a 3PDT switch is
to light the LED.
INMHO, the designer of that diagram should NOT have colored
the short lead from the upper/middle lug red, it should be black... just
to save people from getting confused

[chuckfalcon]

There's the LED, it's pretty important 

You can clip that wire entirely if you don't want an LED.
The only thing we use the 3rd row of a 3PDT switch is
to light the LED.
INMHO, the designer of that diagram should NOT have colored
the short lead from the upper/middle lug red, it should be black... just
to save people from getting confused

AH HA!!!  Thanks a bunch!  This thing has driven me nuts for the past couple days.  Why in the world does that little LED make all the difference?  Isn't +9V STILL getting to that same lug?  Maybe a lesser amount of (+) voltage?

What does the "CLR" next to the LED mean?

[Ben Lyman]

Not sure about CLR, but LED needs a resistor either right there or on the ground side. Could be a picture of a resistor? I have been using super bright LEDs w/resistor value anywhere from 22k-47k and the LED is plenty bright even with that much resistance

EDIT: CLR: Current Limiting Resistor 

[mth5044]

CLR = current limiting resistor as you don't want to explode your LED. Without the LED, as said, you are shorting your power supply. Make sure that still works unconnected from your effect. In your drawing; you can entirely get rid of the long red wire if you aren't losing an LED.

[PRR]

> The only things I didn't add were the battery clip and the LED.

No, you "added" a wire-path where the LED-and-resistor are supposed to go.

Say I have 120V power, a switch, and a motor. Well, say I don't have the motor yet. So I connect the switch then put a wire in place of the motor. When I flip the switch, HMMMMMM!!, fuses pop, and then the lights go dark.

The critical thing you need is SOME non-zero resistance in that area. A 1K resistor will pass at-most 9V/1K= 9mA, which is a strain a battery can stand and a wall-wart hardly notices. Just like that, it's just waste power. However that 9mA is ample to light an LED, which is what that path was *supposed* to be for.

You NEED the resistor. Just-a-LED is not enough. The LED will conduct "infinite" current if you apply more than a few volts and do not have that Current Limiting Resistor in series.

General tip: if you don't have a part, don't replace it with a wire. Sometimes it is no harm, sometimes it "works", sometimes that's even a good substitute. However if you don't know, you risk burning the wires.

Minor point: the drawing you base-on shows flat terminals oriented horizontally. Your rendition, I can't tell. In a 2x3-terminal switch, we can figure it out. But on the 3x3 switches, there are two ways to wire 3x3 terminals and one of them is very wrong. (Maybe you got this and didn't need to draw it for yourself.)

> I hear a "tick tick tick" sound.

It sometimes helps to say what you use for power.

Battery and linear-warts don't "tick". But a Switching Supply, faced with a fuse-popping short, will usually shut-down start-up shut-down start-up a few times a second to protect itself. "tick tick tick".

[chuckfalcon]

Hey everyone.  Thank you so much for you help.  I can FINALLY go forward with this project.  I am ultimately going to be adding an LED to the pedal but what I am doing is making a friend a couple of fuzzes, ship them to him, he picks the one he likes, ships them all back to me, I do some custom artwork on the one he liked (insert led), and then ship that one out. 

[Ben Lyman]

The LED will create a little voltage drop and the pedal may sound a little different to your friends ears when he gets it back... or it might not be noticeable.
These days I breadboard my fuzz circuit with LED and everything so I know it will sound exactly the same when I box it up... hopefully!
I even use the actual resistors, caps and pots right off the breadboarded test build right onto the perfboard. A lot of my components have a 5% tolerance, Alpha pots can be all over the place and after all the work to bias a fuzz... Maybe I'm going too far though 

[mth5044]

The LED will create a little voltage drop and the pedal may sound a little different to your friends ears when he gets it back... or it might not be noticeable.
These days I breadboard my fuzz circuit with LED and everything so I know it will sound exactly the same when I box it up... hopefully!

LEDs do have a voltage drop, but not in series with the circuit, so I'm not too sure what you're trying to say here. The LED will use current that will cause a battery to die more quickly, but it won't be quick enough to notice while you're playing. With a power supply, there will be no difference with or without an LED as long as your supply has enough current (it's hard to find a supply that doesn't!). How are you hooking up your LED so that it changes the voltage a circuit is getting?

[Ben Lyman]

I did have an issue with a FF bias one time when I added the LED to the box but I might have done something wrong. Also, I was probably using a cheap LED from Radio Shack with a small resistor, maybe it was 1k or something  But it was a long time ago and I didn't really know what I was doing, ever since then I guess I just assumed it was safer to breadboard with everything including the LED. Now I use superbright w/plenty big resistor.
If you're sure the voltage won't be affected in a way that would affect the bias or anything else, then that's good to know, I trust your knowledge more than my own.

[mth5044]

That's an odd one! I don't see how it could, but there are a lot of smarter people here than me, maybe they know. Sorry to derail thread!

PS taking the components from the breadboard for the circuit isn't going to far at all, it's a really great idea.