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Adventures in Debugging

5/12/2000 2:47 AM
Ed Guidry	Adventures in Debugging Just thought I'd share with some of you guys my trials and tribulations with my pedal. I'm building a sweet thing, one of the most incredible sounding overdrive/distortions I've ever heard. My first pcb had some broken traces from my initial debugging, so I etched another one. Put everything back in, except I put the jfets 1-4 in backwards. No problem, right? Wrong. One of the jfets wasn't working. Sos I check it out with the meter. Q3's voltages were funny. I wasn't getting 0v on Q3's gate, like I should have. I check out R8, which looks ok. I pull it out, it measures ok on the meter. For some reason, I pull out a fresh resistor (mainly because they're easier to solder in) and pop it in. Voltages look good! I plug it in and it cranks! Sweet, liquid harmonics and chunkin' tight bass notes pour out of my '65 super reverb! For some reason, that resistor had some kind of bad mojo or something. Ok. Got that done. Now to jam it in the box. It whines like my baby girl at 3 a.m. High pitched oscillations. Looks like I'll have to mount it different, take in a lot of slack from the wires, some of which are crossed. At least I got it working though. Another thing: Can anyone recommend a real good 9V battery clip? I got some from Rat Shack and they suck, big time. The conductor in there is thin, real thin, and any stress on that thing will pop it off, sure as shit. I want a GOOD 9V clip, with good, LONG leads.

5/12/2000 2:47 AM

Ed Guidry

Adventures in Debugging

Just thought I'd share with some of you guys my trials and tribulations with my pedal. I'm building a sweet thing, one of the most incredible sounding overdrive/distortions I've ever heard.

My first pcb had some broken traces from my initial debugging, so I etched another one. Put everything back in, except I put the jfets 1-4 in backwards.

No problem, right? Wrong. One of the jfets wasn't working. Sos I check it out with the meter. Q3's voltages were funny. I wasn't getting 0v on Q3's gate, like I should have.

I check out R8, which looks ok. I pull it out, it measures ok on the meter. For some reason, I pull out a fresh resistor (mainly because they're easier to solder in) and pop it in. Voltages look good! I plug it in and it cranks! Sweet, liquid harmonics and chunkin' tight bass notes pour out of my '65 super reverb! For some reason, that resistor had some kind of bad mojo or something.

Ok. Got that done. Now to jam it in the box. It whines like my baby girl at 3 a.m. High pitched oscillations. Looks like I'll have to mount it different, take in a lot of slack from the wires, some of which are crossed. At least I got it working though.

Another thing: Can anyone recommend a real good 9V battery clip? I got some from Rat Shack and they suck, big time. The conductor in there is thin, real thin, and any stress on that thing will pop it off, sure as shit. I want a GOOD 9V clip, with good, LONG leads.

Replies:

Jake Man, I feel your pain. Seriously. ... -- 5/12/2000 3:12 AM
Doug FWIW, I could never get this circui... -- 5/12/2000 1:13 PM