Super confused about this kit's wiring...

[Dedman]

just have 2 reverbs and you are 1/2 way there

[mjg]

Hey John,

Did you get the delay pedal working? That diagram would have been super confusing, given the missing wire.

One thing I'll add is that if you have an external power supply, and you don't think you will ever put a battery in there, about half those wires can disappear, which makes it much neater. I've given up on the battery connections in all the pedals I'm building now.

Matt

[JohnH]

just have 2 reverbs and you are 1/2 way there

Ha ha, I'm ok with that - any excuse to acquire more pedals!

Did you get the delay pedal working?Matt

Nah, no joy so far. I hooked it all up and nothing happened (though the bypass works, so at least some of my soldering is ok). When I had a better look I realised that the IC sockets had shifted on an angle while I was soldering them, so that only the first few sets of pins are actually making any contact. I used tape to keep them flat, but I guess it didn't work. Anyway, I tried desoldering with my little plastic solder sucker, but I'm not very good and it took forever. I'll go buy some desoldering braid from Jaycar on the weekend and see if that's any easier.

In the meantime I built a little jfet preamp which I found here:

http://www.taydaelectronics.com/jfet...ar-effect.html

It works great, so I drilled and primed an enclosure for it yesterday. I'll screenprint some text and seal it tomorrow and then I'll post some pics. Matt, your comment about the power supply was actually really helpful - I was madly soldering the 3PDT switch and DC jack and all that other stuff for the preamp and then I realised that actually, all it needs at the moment is a battery. I don't need the bypass, because if I want to use it I'll plug it in, and if not, it doesn't matter. And when I get a DC adaptor I'll can the battery too. Super simple, and made my life much easier, so thanks for the food for thought!

[mjg]

Glad that I was able to save you some wiring hassle. That's the worst part of pedal building...the final wiring always sucks.

With soldering IC sockets, I tend to use a blob of blue tack to hold it in place while I solder down two opposite corners. Then remove the blue tack, check it's all good, then solder the rest of the pins.

[JohnH]

With soldering IC sockets, I tend to use a blob of blue tack to hold it in place while I solder down two opposite corners. Then remove the blue tack, check it's all good, then solder the rest of the pins.

That makes so much more sense than what I did, and is a perfect example of is why I should always ask first lol

[Marcel]

With soldering IC sockets, I tend to use a blob of blue tack to hold it in place while I solder down two opposite corners. Then remove the blue tack, check it's all good, then solder the rest of the pins.

I do much the same without the BlueTac... I tack solder diagonally opposite pins using the minimum solder possible as they are only to hold things for the next few moments, Pick the board up and press on the socket or chip with my finger and then re-flow the tack solder joint. If there is a gap the chip or socket will seem to 'click' into place when the solder melts, and the I immediately remove the iron. Once I'm sure the two tack solders are holding the chip or socket correctly in the right position, and all the pins look nice and even, and the chip or socket is in the right way round, I then place the board down and proceed to correctly solder all the pins with my two tack joins being the last solders to be re-done.

[JohnH]

Man, I got so caught up with all my other pedal projects that I completely forgot I even had this kit. I came across it again while I was tidying my studio last week, and finally sat down to trouble shoot tonight. Turns out the only thing wrong was a bad solder join connecting the circuit board and input wire. Fixed it up and it works like a charm!

Did a low volume test tonight (kids are asleep/amp has no headphone jack), but will crank it tomorrow and see what my $30 has bought me sound-wise. I was just given some recording gear too, so if I can set that up over the weekend I might try to post a soundbite.

UPDATE: The pedal isn't bad. It's not particularly fancy, but then it never claimed to be (plus, it was only $30 lol). I'll have to keep playing with it, but it sounds pretty good in combination with a fuzz - gets that droning doom sound that I quite enjoy

[JohnH]

Sorry for all the pedal spam today, but realised I never posted a pic of this finished. Ended up making my own enclosure...