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Howdy,
Hoping someone can help me out. This is my second build; a Pump’d Up Tone Bender kit. Anyway, I’m getting a ton of very loud buzzing in addition to the guitar signal. It does this when outside of the enclosure and in. I’m pretty sure I have the wiring wrong on the input jack, and I also plan to shorten the transistor legs. Judging from the pictures, can you see any other issues? Also, any troubleshooting tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Looks to me as if the output jack is reverse-wired : black wire from “o” on 3PDT PCB should go to the tip of the jack, not the sleeve. And white wire from main PCB, output side, should go to the ground (sleeve).
Agree with above. Input Jack wiring looks okay. Output Jack wires are opposite way they should be. This is a quick fix and you should be in business.
Yup, I rewired the output jack and it’s working well now. A little more hiss than I was expecting when the “attack” knob is beyond 2-3 o’clock, but I’m guessing that’s just life.
I think one should expect some noise when pushing a 3 stage fuzz circuit using Germanium transistors to the limit.
At the same time the noise should not be louder than the signal going to the amp.
Consider checking your grounds, shortening your leads on the transistors, keeping all power wiring away from audio wiring (dressing) and only test in the enclosure with the back on. Use only the one pedal in a test with only two good cables straight to amp (no chains when testing). You could also put a 2.1mm end on a battery strap to test for line noise since a battery will not produce any noise.
A free trick would be to swap around transistors and see what you hear. If there is too much hiss still you can mod the capacitors at C3, C6 and C7 by increasing their value till you block out the hiss frequency (do this at all three locations). You could try 470p, 500p or higher. Being this is a high, hiss frequency it will not really affect your actual guitar tone trying those values. I would have no qualms about doing that. Please note that mods are not going to be part of kits and due to the nature of Germanium transistors results will vary to a large degree.
I hope that helps.
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