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Hi Everyone,
I am having some trouble with my Apollo Tremolo build 🙁
The gain control/circuit seems to work fine! The kill switch seems to be in working order as well. The bi-color indicator LED lights up solid green when the effect is “engaged” and lights up solid red when the effect is “disengaged” (in quotes because my effect isn’t working heehee). However, the bi-color does not flash or change flash rate with the speed knob, or flash at all for that matter.
Additionally, when the effect is engaged and I turn the depth knob, the signal of the guitar disappears at any other position besides “0.” I went back and re-flowed all of the joints that I thought were suspect and I still have nothing 🙁
Here are my voltages from the ICs:
IC1:
1: 60 mV 8: 0 V
2: 160 mV 7: 0 V
3: 7.70 V 6: 7.51 V
4: 9.06 V 5: 7.51 VIC2:
1: 4.5 V 8: 0 V
2: 4.5 V 7: 4.5 V
3: 4.5 V 6: 4.5 V
4: 9.06 V 5: 4.5 VAny guidance, help, and input is most welcome and appreciated. This is my first pedal build and I would love to get it working 🙂
All the best,
Will
By chance are your voltages for IC1 are actually for IC2? I ask because if you are hearing the guitar signal when engaged, that would mean that IC1 was working properly. The voltages you give for IC1 are not correct (pins 1 and 2 are low). That would suggest that those voltages are actually for IC2 which controls the LFO. IF you have no tremolo effect, this might mean that the LFO is not working.
Let’s start by fixing the LED. You have the LED installed on the 3PDT switching board. It is indicating the effect on and bypass position. The bi-colour LED for the tremolo is the D1 on the main board. Install a bi-colour LED there and see if it starts to blink. Blinking will indicate the LFO is working. Report your findings.
Hi Wilkie,
You are correct about the voltages: I accidentally swapped the names of IC1 and IC2 in my original report! I will install the bi-color LED at the D1 socket on the board and report my results here shortly! Thank you!!
Hi Wilkie,
I installed the bi-color LED at the D1 socket on the board like you suggested and it does not light up or flash at all. I tested both sides of the LED with a 3V coin battery and also tested my new connections for continuity to rule any funny business out. Does this mean that my LFO is not working?
Thanks for your help thus far, you give me hope that we will get this thing working!
OK. Let’s look at some other things. Swap the 2 IC chips and take new voltage measurements on them. If IC2 now has good voltages on Pins 1 and 2, you should see the LED light up and start blinking on and off. If so, your other IC chip is defective.
If the voltage on the IC2 position is still bad and no LED light, remove the ICs and power and reflow all solder pads. Then retest.
Also confirm that the DEPTH pot is a B1K.
OK, majorly embarrassed here: I had actually swapped my smooth (B500K) and depth (B1K) pots. Now that both of those pots are in the right place, all of my tremolo seems to be working properly!
The only thing not working is my LED is not flashing or lighting up at all still in the new D1 position on the board. I swapped both of the ICs and found no difference in performance. Shortly I will take the new voltages with the ICs swapped, but I wanted to go ahead and update that the main portion of the effect is in working order now!!! Thank you so much for your help thus far!
Good. Now that the pedal is working to produce the desired effect, let us solve the LED issue.
Read page 3 of the build document. It shows the correct wiring diagram to use for this pedal. You do not need to use a 3PDT wiring board for this build. Instead, you add the three wires from the main board marked S4, S5 and S6. They wire directly to the middle row of contacts on the foot switch. (Since you already soldered a 3PDT wiring board to the foot switch, you can just solder the 3 wires onto those middle contacts without removing the wiring board.) Do not add power to the 3PDT board! It will not be needed now.
Now the LED should work Report your findings.
Ok, here are my new and properly labeled voltages!
IC1:
1: 4.53 V 8: 0 V
2: 4.53 V 7: 4.50 V
3: 4.53 V 6: 4.53 V
4: 9.06 V 5: 4.53 VIC2:
1: ~2.8-3.9 V 8: 0 V
2: ~3.8-4.9 V 7: ~4.5-5 V, drops to ~ 3.0 V for instant then raises to 5, and slowly descends to ~4.5, repeats
3: 4.53 V 6: ~4.5-5 V, ” ”
4: 9.06 V 5: ~4.5-5 V, ” “
Ok, so I connected the LED like you said and now it is flashing like it is supposed to! Green indicates effect is engaged and red to indicate the bypass. The blinking varies with the speed knob as it should!
However, I now have lost the tremolo effect again! I only soldered at pads S4, S5, and S6 and the 3 middle prongs of the footswitch, so I don’t understand where it could have happened. I still have true bypass and engaging the kill switch works as well. I am still running power through the 3PDT only to utlilize the extra power and ground pads to power some indicator LEDs.
Any ideas? Thanks again! Worst comes to worse I’ll just install the bi-color back in the 3PDT board and cut my losses on the flashing mechanism!
In the actuated position, the Kill switch should pass the LFO signal to the Optocoupler and provide tremolo sound. In the KILL position, the LFO is disconnected and the BLEVEL trimmer provides a steady voltage so that the guitar signal will pass without tremolo. The LED will continue to blink when the KILL is actuated. Is this what you are seeing?
No tremolo sound, however, the rest is true. The LED blinks whether or not the kill switch is engaged.
Double check all wiring and board connections. You might have juggled something while making the other changes. Since you had tremolo working before the last changes, it is likely something got loose. Blinking LED means the LFO is working.
Hi Wilkie,
I checked all of the most important connections for continuity and everything looked good. As a simple test, I unsoldered S4, S5, and S6 from the switch and after I did this the tremolo effect worked normally (except the LED does not blink or light up in the main board’s D1 position).
For now I think I may re-install the bi-color back to the 3PDT board so it can at least serve as an indicator light. The flashing function is not very important to me but I’d love to make it work! If you have any other suggestions, I am ready to try it! If not, the effect is good-enough for me as is! Thank you so much for all your help!!!
Hi Everyone,
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