Andy 40's Madbean Snarkdoodle (Overdrive Pedal)

[Andy40]

Thanks Guys, yeah Matt, it sounded pretty good before I boxed it. Sounded much better than on the breadboard.

Then disaster struck.

She no work...

I think I burnt the pots out cutting the long shaft with my dremel..... How do you guys cut your long shafts?

dang....till next weekend.

[DrNomis_44]

Thanks Guys, yeah Matt, it sounded pretty good before I boxed it. Sounded much better than on the breadboard.

Then disaster struck.

She no work...

I think I burnt the pots out cutting the long shaft with my dremel..... How do you guys cut your long shafts?

dang....till next weekend.

To cut the shafts of the 24mm Alpha Pots I use to build my pedals, I just use a small bench vise, a standard metalworking hacksaw, and a fine felt-tip blue sharpie to mark where to cut, had no problems with pots not working with that method.

[mjg]

I use my rotary tool (rip off brand of the Dremel) to cut the tops of pots. Haven't had issues doing it that way.

Might be something else is making it not work - something shorting out in the enclosure when you put it in? Maybe the switch isn't wired correctly?

Do you get a bypass signal working through the enclosure when you stomp on the switch? If that also doesn't work, might be the switch.

Another thing to check first up - use your multimeter to double check that power is getting to the board.

[Andy40]

Yeah, everything was working sweet all wired up (just no LED) then as soon as I cut the tops off the pots I noiced how unbearably hot they were. then suddenly the circuit doesn't work whether it was in the box or out. My multimeter is the next step...just got to find the child free time.....

[DrNomis_44]

Yeah, everything was working sweet all wired up (just no LED) then as soon as I cut the tops off the pots I noiced how unbearably hot they were. then suddenly the circuit doesn't work whether it was in the box or out. My multimeter is the next step...just got to find the child free time.....

I'm guessing that it's probably just a bad solder-joint somewhere that got disturbed, also, check to see if any of the solder lugs on the pots are a bit loose, I've sometimes had some pots develop loose solder lugs after I've soldered wires to them, if you find any pots with loose solder lugs it's best to just replace them with a good one, hope that helps, let us know your findings.


Sometimes the footswitch solder lugs can go a bit loose too if you apply heat for too long on them, that could be the reason for the Led not working, also, check the voltages on the components when the pedal is powered up with your multimeter, if some of the voltages look a bit off then it's probably a faulty component that's related to it that's causing it to be a bit off.

[Maddogm]

make sure you don't have a bit of wire or a component shorting somewhere, on one of my pedals I had a bit of wire I'd soldered into the PCB shorting on the enclosure killing the pedal (it was on one of the jacks)

[mjg]

Good luck debugging it Andy. Good luck finding the child free time too.

How old is the child? Once they are old enough to read the letters 'R' and 'C', and numbers 1-20 or so, you can use them to populate the circuit boards for you.

(And once they are old enough to hold a pencil, and understand the sentence "Arrrhhgg, no, that's too much solder!" they are ready to learn soldering too )

[stan]

Good plan, historically child labour has been used to cheaply increase production...

Didn't happen until you cased it Andy - it's an obvious statement, but there is probably the best place to start the search. Not working and heating pots certainly suggests a short , good luck

[Andy40]

Good luck debugging it Andy. Good luck finding the child free time too.

How old is the child? Once they are old enough to read the letters 'R' and 'C', and numbers 1-20 or so, you can use them to populate the circuit boards for you.

(And once they are old enough to hold a pencil, and understand the sentence "Arrrhhgg, no, that's too much solder!" they are ready to learn soldering too )

You give me such good ideas Matt

[Simon Barden]

I'm wondering if the initial problem, the 'rough' sound with the gain turned up, is simply due to the signal being too hot for the Zoom and Roland inputs and you are getting digital clipping as a result? Both are DSP based units so will have maximum signal levels that they can cope with. Exceed those and the tops of any waveforms entering get straight-line clipped. Not nice sounding. You won't get a similar issue with a valve amp. It can happen with modelling amps like the Kemper if you use a really hot pickup in your guitar and don't adjust the input attenuation to its maximum attenuation level - let alone the output from a high-gain drive pedal.

If you keep the output volume low, do you get a similar effect with the gain turned right up?


Also, did you pick up from the circuit diagram that the gain pot is a linear type whilst the volume pot should be an audio type?