@johnnysmoke
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…how absolutely bizarre. I wrote “It lives” but originally, I was going to write the following:
“It’s Alive! (voice of Gene Wilder)”
I’m sorry, I don’t remember what size enclosure it is anymore. I’ve had it for 6 or more years. I either got it from Tayda or LoveMySwitches, probably the later.
I painted it with Rustoleum, made the graphics with Inkscape, printed it out on some quality decal paper I bought off Amazon using my Brother laser printer.
I like my pedals to look old school. Sometimes I’ll paint a few layers in different colors and sand back the edges to reveal different layers. In this case I put on a non compatible clear coat over a good Rustoleum clear coat. The non compatible clear is rubbing off and looking dirty, which is totally my ‘thing’. I used to make my stomp boxes ‘pretty’ with interesting graphics…only to realize that 1) my favorite pedals are old school EHX and MXR and 2) I’m gonna Velcro these down and stomp on them anyway. Thus began my journey to make relic’ed looking pedals.
…and yes. I have better guitar cables. LOL. After I saw this picture, I thought “How in the world did I wind up with that old dog back on my table again?” – that green cable with the duct tape was an instrument cable I used during the 90’s and saw a lot of gigs and abuse.
It lives. Got a new footswitch, wired it in CORRECTLY – and I’ve been messing around with the Paramix for over an hour now, testing the few pedals I have at our apartment. Can’t wait to bring it home tomorrow, I really want to run my Rat Deluxe build in parallel with some other builds.
Also in the pic, a couple other GuitarPCB pedals I put together back in 2014.
I just barely drifted off to sleep, and I bolt upright with an idea that pops into my head: is the orientation of the foot switch wrong?
Did I just have my ‘Euteka’ moment?
I think have the lugs perpendicular instead of horizontal. I’ll not be able to sleep until I can sneak out and peek at my pedal.
I was reminiscing about how the inner works of the foot switch operated, the three metal pieces only able to rock back/forth in a certain direction, therefore the orientation of the switch…I think should have been turned 90 degrees. Oh jeez, I’ll never get any sleep now!!!
Just spent a couple more hours on this. Numbers are:
Input voltage 9.46 vdc
1: 4.69 14: 4.69
2: 4.69 13: 4.69
3: 4.69 12: 4.69
4: 9.46 11: 0.00
5: 4.69 10: 4.26
6: 4.70 9: 4.69
7: 4.70 8: 4.69
I built a sound probe today. Nifty device. And it gave me an even more puzzling result. (puzzling to me, anyway, LOL)
The instrument cable going into the “IN” jack produces sound at the tip of the cable, if the switch is OFF. Normal, right? I mean, who doesn’t expect that. LOL. However…
When the switch is ON, there is no more incoming sound, not even at the tip of the instrument cable that is plugged into the “IN” jack. (!)
There is sound at the incoming terminal on the footswitch only if it is OFF (which makes sense that the same holds true for the tip of the instrument cable going into the IN jack, I suppose…that’s pretty much a direct line from the instrument cable tip to the incoming footswitch terminal via a wire).
I took the footswitch apart, nothing suspicious. I cleaned the parts a bit hoping maybe the grease was causing some connectivity issues then I put the footswitch back together: Still the same behavior.
I again checked to make sure the jacks, footswitch, etc., are connected properly, all wiring is where it should be. Checked and re-flowed some soldier here and there: Still the same behavior.
Earlier I had recanted my statement about my “power on” LED – it is dull. I touched the ground wire of the LED to a ground while the footswitch was “ON” and it lit up brightly. Removing the additional ‘test’ ground connection that I had added results in the LED going dull again.
Tomorrow I will break out the DMM and see if I can figure out how to measure things as per the Tonman section of the instructions…I also have a capacitance tester…dunno if that will help me but I’ll try to figure this out some more tomorrow.
BTW: I have two ICs, same results with both of them, swapping them did not help (but I did not take one from a ‘working’ pedal)
Will continue tomorrow. Sigh.
Thanks for help/tips/ideas
Thanks for the compliment! I tried all sends and all returns to the amp. I’ve also tried connecting my ‘in’ to the returns with the ‘out’ to the amp. Volume pots are turned fully clockwise.
Nada. Not even a hiss. Nothing.As per Barry’s post, I also went over the in/out jacks wiring, actually ALL of the wiring, probably 30 times by now. Tips and grounds are all in their prospective pads, I’ve quadruple checked those pesky switched jacks, too.
I’m about at wits end. Tomorrow I’ll finally have some time to make an audio probe, although I’m not sure what to do with it. As per Barry’s suggestion, I guess I’ll learn how to DMM some things, too. This has been a long time coming, I guess it is time to learn what I’m actually doing.
ODD: I was messing with the guts on this thing, and the power LED to the foot switch light up NICE AND BRIGHT when the ground on it touched the pedal housing. I didn’t know it before…but I guess that the LED is very DIM – the led on the kill switch is nice and bright, though. I had the power LED inside a Fender-style “jewel” button, so I thought that was the reason it was so dim.
I just know, deep in the back of my feeble brain, that I’ve done SOMETHING fundamentally stupid with this, and that’s why it’s not working. LOL. I just made sure that yes, in/out jack sleeves are to board, tips to foot switch. I thought it would be ‘hilarious’ had I reverse-wired the output jack, but it’s not. I’ve gone over the wiring on this thing about 100 times…this has to be something I’m overlooking with my reading glasses on. LOL
EDIT: for anyone looking at my pictures, those silver dots on the bottom are from a silver sharpie I used to mark the locations of the resistors when I was testing them with my voltmeter. Just FYI
“My first check whenever a pedal doesn’t make any noise, is the input and output cables, go direct guitar to amp through both cables. That verifies the guitar and cables and amp.”
I’ve actually done that twice. I made sure my guitar and patch cables were 100% working, along with pedals, etc. that I’ve used for troubleshooting. TLDR: about 5 years ago, I was ‘troubleshooting’ why my 1975 Kustom guitar amp wasn’t working, I think it took me 40 minutes to figure out it was a dead cable I had plugged in. I should have known: that cable was used on a tour in the 90’s and was…very abused. LOL.
“Try plugging the guitar into the returns then, If you get sound, then your problem is in the front half of the circuit.”
Thank you! – That was an excellent idea. Forehead slap “why didn’t I think of that?” – unfortunately, the returns did not work, either. I tried the input, the sends, and the returns this morning again: not even a hiss. Nothing. Dead. I’m thinking this MUST be something stupid I’m doing, I’ve got to have something grounded somewhere…
“Then check voltage (DC) on the board, at the 9v+ pad and a ground. if that is good then verify the bias voltage (VB) that would be at pins 3, 5, and 10 on the IC, that should usually be around half the supply voltage, 4.5 volts. while your there write down the voltage readings for the other pins. pin 4 should be 9v. pin 11 should be 0v. NOTE: the pin to the left of the dot on the IC is 1 and you count down and over then back up..”
Thank you again: I knew I could do a voltage check on the IC pins…I just didn’t know which ones to check. Measurements are as follows:
Pad/Ground: 9.45v
Pin 3: 4.69V
Pin 5: 4.69V
Pin 10: 4.69V
Pin 4: 9.46V
I have made all measurements 3x to make sure they are consistent.
“If nothing obvious is wrong ,at this pint I would break out the audio probe. I’m not one of the guru’s here. This is where they take over.”
I’m going to make a probe later this morning, I have the parts ready and sitting on my bench, but I have to go back to bed for now and get some more sleep.
“Remember those folks that build their pedals all neat and tidy, are artists, I’m not one of them, It doesn’t matter what it looks like, as long as it works..Post some pictures and the voltage measurements..”
Your advice is sage. Done, and done. Thank you again.
With two not-so-subtle hints to post pix (LOL) I’ve pulled the PCB out of the housing for the third time, and I’ve taken pictures of my spaghetti bowl. I really hope it helps, because I’m at wit’s end. I’ve had to restrain myself from throwing it in the bin a few times…my wife talked me off the ledge last night. She is the soothing Yin to my raging Yang (Simpsons reference).
PSA: If anything, I’ve now learned to use a smaller gauge wire for my off-board wiring. At first I was trying to make a super neat and tidy pedal, being jealous of other’s gut shots. After wondering why my rather huge pedal housing is STUFFED I finally realized that the wiring I used was so thick, it just made a mess of everything. I finally had that “ah-ha” moment and realized from now on, I’ll use the Barry’s Hookup wire I have on hand.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you photos fresh off my phone at 6:32AM:
