Distortion Plus help

[remainder]

Hi, everybody. I just joined the list. I've enjoyed playing guitar for many years, and I thought that, being an electrical engineering student, I could jump right into pedal building. Apparently, no. I can't.

  General Guitar Gadgets recommended the Distortion Plus for beginners, but I can't get the thing to distort. My question is this: is the DC power supply 9 Volts, or is it 18 Volts (the schematic is here: http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/v2/diagrams/dist_plus_sc.gif )? That DC jack thing is confusing me. I do not own a DC jack, nor do I know what it is.

  The above question was for my own curiosity. I have tried both 9 and 18V and my pedal doesn't work. When both on and off, the amp plays clean (with a little unrelated noise in the background). I've soldered everything in well, I'm sure of that; I've soldered enough for classes that I know a good soldering job when I see one. I know this is vague and difficult, but if anyone can advise me as to what I'm doing wrong, I would appreciate it. Thanks so very much for any help you can offer.

[aron]

Do the knobs affect anything at all? If not, then you have a wiring mistake on the switch.

If the volume knob makes a difference, then you _are_ going through the circuit and if it doesn't distort then you have a wiring mistake on the op amp feedback loop somewhere.

Obviously, I recommend the ..... BEGINNER PROJECT! for obvious reasons!

BTW, the pedal works with 9V although I suppose 18 would work.

[travissk]

It's 9V; you'll find that the majority of effects run off that amount of voltage.

A DC Jack is just the place where you plug in a "wall wart" adapter to connect to the wall, so you can use wall outlets as opposed to tons of batteries to power your effects. You've probably seen hundreds or thousands of plugs in your life

If you don't have a DC jack and adapter, feel free to use a battery or even a lab bench power supply.

As for the effect itself, is there a difference when the effect is on or off, or is it "clean with a little noise" no matter what you do? Double-check your connections to the schematic, make sure you're giving your opamps power, etc. Also check on the switching.