Tonepad Small Clone working but....

[Canucker]

so I have a sweet sounding Small Clone built from the tonepad layout (where most everyone builds them from?) and it sounds fantastic. I love it...A LOT! and it sounds as it should....but when I wired it up with a true bypass foot switch it makes a HUGE pop when I turn it on or off.....I got rid of the LED all together and the pop is as loud as ever. Its killing me cus I really want to make use of this build. There are no other issues with this as far as I can find. Is there a capacitor value I could try changing to combat this? Does the position of the variable resistor have any part in something like this? Was I dropped on my head as a child so now I'm hearing things? Did anyone else have this type of issue with the tonepad version? Did a search and came up empty handed.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[bluebunny]

I added a big pull-down resistor from the input (on the board) to ground.  Silent.  Or at least as silent as these old ears can detect.   

[duck_arse]

do you have any boss-type pedals in your chain when the small clone pops?

[Canucker]

no other effects....guitar into small clone into amp. I always start small to test things before expanding things. But once I get this solved it was going to be paired up with a Boss pedal and and old ten series Ibanez...hoping I don't run into new problems once I get past this.

as far as a big pull down resistor to ground....what are we calling big? 1M?

I used a Tayda switch for this...haven't had any trouble with them for all my fuzzy projects.

[armdnrdy]

1M-2M is standard.

Connect pull downs to input/output of circuit not switch.

There's plenty of info on this subject on the net:

http://www.muzique.com/news/pulldown-resistors/

[bluebunny]

Yeah, what Larry said.  BTW, you'll find there's a handy pair of spare pads down in the bottom LH corner of the tonepad board to fit a resistor between input and ground.  How convenient!

[Canucker]

used a 2.2M resistor on the in and the out.....Not even the slightest change. Is it possible that I put in a wrong value part somewhere... which allows the effect to work just fine but causes the unwanted noise?
The switch works every time its just loud loud loud.

[Dave W]

i know this sounds a bit too simple, but... have you tried another switch? you didn't mention it and no one asked.

[Canucker]

Haven't yet ripped apart another project to try this one with another switch (time to stock up on switches it appears)...but I did come to notice that the amp I'm using to test projects has a speaker thats starting to show signs for imperfection...so I tested out this project with my smokey amp (the 9 volt amp project) and found that I didn't get a pop when I turned on the effect but I did when I turned it off...and the off pop was slightly quieter then my guitar signal as opposed to louder which it was with the tester amp.... so since the off pop is the loud one I'm thinking the switch is playing a big part in popping....wishful thinking? Time to get another switch in there!

[Canucker]

swapped out the true bypass switch for a momentary switch (not true bypass)...even louder popping on any amp...BLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[duck_arse]

plug a lead into your amp that pops, and measure across tip and sleeve to see if there is any dc voltage present.