it was working, then when i ran someother pedals with it, it's just dead except when bypassed. if it matters it went like this: guitar>fuzz face>DOD supra distortion>Zoom 505II>Amp.

although it worked, and it sounded sweet, there was problems. i think i wired the dc jack wrong (but it didn't matter before), the LED didn't display at all, and mostly the fuzz made it crackle after it was turned down past about 5.

but now it doesn't work at all  :cry: . any suggestions?

(Sh)It happens. And with projects very often. Even the easiest project with handful of components may be difficult to make work.

But if it was a good FF, its worth trying. Keep on trying, check it piece by piece, get new transistors if you zapped old ones...

the two electrolite capasotors are from radioshack, could that be a reason why?

comeone, anybody?

I doubt radioshack is the reason. It did work at one point, so check for shorts. Why do you think that the dc input is wired wrong? check that too. if you can take a picture I'll look at it.

Quote from: danit was working, then when i ran someother pedals with it, it's just dead except when bypassed.

Did you run it off the same power supply as the other pedals? Is it possible that your Fuzz Face is center positive and you hooked it up with the others to a center negative supply. If so I believe the reverse polarity could have done some damage.

Just a thought.
Bill

no, it was powered by a battary. the reason so is because when i put the power jack in, it went complety dead. but when i took it out, it was fine. then i ran it threw the rest of my effect chain. when i first connected them all, the DOD supra distortion was on and so was the zoom 505II. i bypassed the DOD and the Zoom and the ff worked fine except a little bit of hum, more so than when the only pedal. then i bypassed the ff and the zoom and turned on the DOD for a little bit. then bypassed the DOD and went to turn on the ff but no signal cam threw. the only effect that was connected to a walwart was the DOD, i couldn't connect anything one to the zoom because i made horrible squils and hum and buz.

If you have a voltmeter, measure the voltages between each transistor leg(emitter, base, collector) and ground, measure the battery in circuit(while connected) and post your numbers. If you do not have a voltmeter...get one! a cheep one is fine.
This meter is more than enough
http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/4632

try shaking it a bit....or take it appart and spread out the switch, board, and pots.  A simple cross or short could have caused it to stop working .

i tried shaking it...nothing. i've been looking at it for a week. i think i'm ganna go out into the garage and fix some questionable solders.

ok, i did that and it still doesn't work. anybody got anyother suggestions or web sites with debugging instructions (other than the one at geofex, the only one i found)?

hi
Maybe you burn your transistors try others without your external supply
Bruno

ok thanks Bruno. do you know how long it takes mouser to ship things? i live in kansas. thanks.

EDIT: how would i know that it is the transistor which have gone bad? i want to make sure of that before i spend the money, and, posibly worse, another try with it still dead.

Mouser products should arive within a week...depending on the shipping method chosen.  They're very prompt, though...

You can check the transistor with a DMM that shows Hfe.  Or you can pull it off hte board and wire some _simple_ circuit around it, making sure that that works.... (I'm talking LED simple).

ok thanks. i was tring to test the transistors with my multimeter but at first it would give me a voltage and then turn to zero after like half a second. it would do this for every lead on both transistors. i don't know but, what can i say, i think it might be the caps. ya know, i don't know just a guess.

so then i was messing around and i smelt something and then i felt the battery and it was warm. this was a bran new battary that i just put in it to see if it made a difference (the last one was at about 8.3). what does this mean?

thanks in advance

Hi,

perhaps there is a bad solderjoint at the Gainpot or at the Batterysnap?

I hat build an Si FF and one Cable at the Gainpot was soldered bad.
The Fuzz didnt work right and temporarily was dead...

may be?

bye
Oliver

alright, i looked at those solderjoints and they where all good. i then got out my multimeter and started testing the board again.
first i tested the caps and the trasistors but i got odd results. it seems that one side of the board gets 9.1 v and one side gets nothing.

so then i decided to test see if the caps worked right, this is what i did. i set the multimeter to test resistance (or for me, just a connection), then i put one probe on one lead, and the other probe on the other lead (it does't matter which probe or lead because both ways have the same result) and one time with the battary hooked up and input in (to get the voltage to the board) and one time w/out the battary, here's what i got every time:

2.2uF electrolite: a signal for a split second then nothing
22uf electrolite: continuouse signal
.1uf film: nothing

does this mean anything?

edit: also, when testing the whole time with the battary connected and the input in, the battary didn't heat up like it did last time.  :?

Dan, if your battery is really getting warm, it sounds like your 9V is shorting either to ground or to something in the circuit that is at significantly less than 9V potential. First, I'd doublecheck the whole 9V path to make sure everything looks good. There's a chance that a cap (or maybe even a transistor) has failed short. With caps, a lot of times this can be intermittent which can be a huge pain to find. If you're 100% certain your power connections aren't shorting, I'd swap out any caps connecting to power first, then try swapping the transistors out. Last, I'd blow up the whole thing and start over! Good luck man!!!

thanks rog951, i guess thats what i'll start to do. man, i hope it works, cause when it did it was alsome.

Hi,
It happens sometimes ,it is called a short!Check your circuit before you power it on with your meter ;look for wires and check if there's no contact beetweens the tracks,then when it's ok ,change your battery and try it again.Look at GEOFEX  you may find some goods infos int the debugging pages,i hope this help
Bruno