Ground badness

[Deep Blue]

Alright, here's where I am with this fuzz face I'm working on.

Bypass sort of works, but it sounds very muddled and crappy.  I get extremely loud, aweful noises whenever I touch the output jack, like something isn't grounded.  Same for when I touch the ground on the circuit board, or other places.

So I rewired aalllll of the grounds with better wire, and made sure every connection was perfect.

Same deal.  In effect mode, I get no signal, but the pedal is pouring hum into the amp at extremely high volume.

What else could it be, since everything is wired and soldered properly?

[Jay Doyle]

What else could it be, since everything is wired and soldered properly?

Paraphrasing R.G.: "Mother Nature is one fickle bitch", well that is taking quite a liberty with R.G.'s words but...

Unfortunately, your statement above is not right, if everything were wired and soldered properly it would work.

Are you sure the power is oriented correctly?
Are you sure the switch is wired correctly?
Are you sure of the transistor pinout?
Are you sure the jacks are wired correctly? (I'd triple check this one with the problems you are having)

If you triple check everything and all is kosher, post voltages and we should be able to help you more.

Good luck,

Jay Doyle

[axis]

Switch could be bad. Check it with your meter.

[john1056]

I'm kind of a newbie, but are you sure the problem is with the ground?  Your jacks will make the entire enclosure ground, so what happens if you just connect a wire between the tips of the input and output jack?  Also what kind of jacks are you using?  I used the cheapo radio shack ones for my first two projects.  They can get all jumbled up when you tighten them so that the TIP and ground get in a state of badness.

[Deep Blue]

The power is wired correctly, the switch is wired correctly, the jacks are wired correctly, I don't have a multimeter to check the trannies or switch, and I'm pretty much certain my jacks havn't been screwed up (I've done that before).  They're good switchcraft ones.

Right now, nothing is really screwed into the enclosure except for the power thingy and one of the pots... I unscrewed everything so I could debug it.  Could that be part of the problem?  Even if it was, I should still get a signal, right?  I've used pedal guts sans enclosure on numerous occasions and yielded positive results.

[lightningfingers]

I don't know about the bypass thing, but in effect mode....is it a ge transistor fuzz face? If so did you measure leakage on those?

just a thought.....

[Deep Blue]

Ah hah!  I got it working, finally.  I suspect I had a faulty wire (severed in the middle beneath the shielding or something stupid), because I started replacing random wires and it started working.  Thanks for you help everyone.

Bitchin pedal, by the way.

[punkaled]

time to buy a multimeter?
you would have probably found that wire in a few minutes using the continuity tester, or resistance tester of a DMM
:wink: