Craig Anderton Remote Footswitch

[Hank Smith]

Hi everyone.  I've built 4 electronic footswitches from Craig Anderton's, 'Electronic Projects for Musicians' (Project 15).  I'm using them to remotely control 4 stompboxes that I have in my rack.  One works fine, but the LED's on the other 3 are always on, they just get brighter when the effect is engaged.  For the life of me I can't figure out what's wrong.  I know the circuit is pretty outdated, but is there anyone who is familiar with it and can figure out what's going on?

[Mark Hammer]

The LED turns on when the cathode has a viable path to ground.  That suggests to me that somehow the LED is finding that viable path through the resistor connected to the base of the transistor.  Is that transistor mounted properly?  Is the resistor a mistaken value?

[Hank Smith]

Thanks for getting back to me.  I tested each switch before I put them in the rackmount case, and they all worked.  It's got to be something that happened when I wired them into the case.  I'll search again for any accidental ground connections.  I'm almost at the point of tossing these and starting over.