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Hey there. I’ve got an Angry Charles kit I purchased from you, and this is not a tech support question. (I work on guitars, pedals and amps full time for a living).
I noticed some anomalies in my kit and I wanted to verify that the different components I received (and one I conversely did NOT receive), are negligible to the pedal functioning. (Which it presently is NOT).
The one piece I did NOT receive is labeled in the diagram is listed as R18.
Also C7 and C8 that were sent to me don’t look like resistors, but more like capacitors? I can provide pictures if necessary. The provided picture from your build website has C7 and C8 not looked at all like what I was sent.
Also posting this in the forum for advice to double check my work, if anyone has any advice I’d appreciate it.
GuitarPCB does not sell kits. We do provide support though.
If you have kit purchasing questions you will have to go through whomever you purchased from.
“The one piece I did NOT receive is labeled in the diagram is listed as R18.”
R18 is the current limiting resistor for the status LED (see schematic) which you are using on the 3PDT wiring board since that is where you mounted the status LED, therefore no need for R18 on the main board. So CLR placement is an option, or preference, depending on where you like the status LED (by foot switch, or higher). If you bought this from PedalPartsandKits there should have been a note mentioning that.
“Also C7 and C8 that were sent to me don’t look like resistors, but more like capacitors?”
C7 and C8 are capacitors. (see schematic) and also why the bill of materials and part number is labeled with a “C” and not “R”. Also the capacitor code indicating value is printed on the side.
“The provided picture from your build website has C7 and C8 not looked at all like what I was sent.”
There are many different types of capacitor materials. The ones I see you have are MLCC and are very good capacitors and accomplish the job within the space required. MLCC are perfectly good and I use them all the time.
If you go to our Guides Page (Main Menu Bar) and scroll down there are many helpful guides that will help.
The section I refer to look like this:
I hope that helps.
Barry, I just wrote a similar response to Brandon via email. Thanks for helping one of my customers out. So obviously the capacitors are of a correct value and type, so I think that we need a standard troubleshooting effort here.
Brandon, as I mentioned in the email, the soldering on some of the pots does not look good. The large balls of solder on the pins are too much solder, and typically when you get this, the solder did not adhere well to the pads. To get a great bond between the pin and the pad on the PCB, you must heat both equally. This “ball” thing usually appears when the majority of heat is applied to the component lead (the pin of the pot) but not enough on the pad. You can see that on one of the pot’s square PCB pads, the solder did not conform to the shape of the pad. That’s a telltale sign of a bad adhesion to the pad. You’ll notice that other pots have solder stuck to the pad out to the square corners.
If you don’t have a decent solder sucker, I highly recommend one an Edsyn Soldapullt. They have various models from ~$14-30 on Amazon. These things really work. Maybe some of the newer clones of the Edsyn *might* work just as well, not sure, but when I switched from another brand, I never looked back.
At this point, I would just remove enough solder (maybe 75-80%) from the worst pot pads to allow you to apply some fresh solder and bond the pots to the pads properly. Let’s see if the circuit comes to life after that. If it doesn’t, additional troubleshooting will be needed. I’m pretty tied up over the next day or two, but the moderators and other experienced members on this forum are very helpful and can provide additional troubleshooting guidance.
Bruce R
Pedal Parts and Kits
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