(Tubescreamer) Woohoo! I built my first "real" pedal. . and it doesn't work.

[acehobojoe]

Any ideas on what could be going wrong?

You can see a lot with that picture. it is the Stratus by Aion Electronics. I am new to this and I'm not sure what I could have done! You can tell that my soldering sucks, but maybe it's something else.  I was wondering if anyone else on here has had problems building this pedal.

The bypass works fine, and the LED works. I guess there is something wrong on the board.

[Kipper4]

I can't see any picture.
Why don't you head over to the debugging thread and give us more info please and post some pictures too.
A TS is a bit ambitious as a first project..
Let's see if we can't sort it out
Welcome to the forum.

[Will.mendil]

Lol I really like your title. Which is actually why I am answering. As kipper pointed out. The picture doesn't show. And you can find a lot of tutorials ( on this site as well) on how to troubleshoot your pedal. However I got a couple of personal tips. Problems or ways to solve that I didn't find easily on these sites.

If we admit that all your soldering is correct as well as your wiring ( check check and recheck the schematic and follow your track. ) you should check that your circuit is as the schematic .

Check that none of the jacks touch anything ( appart from the "base" that must be grounded) sometimes it might be clear but wen you plug the jack the tip might touch the enclosure or another component. Most of the time this is what is wrong wit my work.

What you can make is a probe to check what your sound is doing. It is basically a jack plugged to the amp and the tip plugged to a cable and you follow the input to the output to see where the sound stops. There might be a cap in the set up. But you'll get the schematic on line. Try typing something like stomp box prob.

Get your DDM and put it on continuity and check I everything is soldered as it should be.

One rare thing that might happen is that one of the component is busted. Pot, trans, jacks. They are a nightmare to troubleshoot but you have to keep it in mind.

The rest should be found in the troubleshooting page. If you can't find anything send us another msg I'll get into more specific technics that might require a bit more gear and tools

Bonne chance

[PRR]

> The picture doesn't show.

He image-linked to the *page*, not the image.

Page (with frills): http://imgur.com/P2Mdf4q

Image (naked): http://i.imgur.com/P2Mdf4q.jpg

The image is WAY too large to post in a message, so it is good he didn't.

[nate77]

I've built a half dozen of the stratus boards from aion in a number of different configurations (the build instructions have a number of different TS variants which is one of the coolest things about these boards) and they all work great. As stated earlier, the jacks are a good place to start, as you may be grounding the signal out before it gets processed, but if you're getting a good bypass signal you input jack is probably ok. There are a number of possible issues here, but wiring is the bane of many pedal DIYer's existence because its tedious and boring. Those particular boards also have a few mods built in if you choose to use them, so I can see it being easy to miswire the board. I'll check the pics when I get home. Good luck and welcome.

[acehobojoe]

Thank you all .. it works now. It was a grounding issue I'm sure, because of how exposed it was. You're right about the wiring! and thank you, will! I have an extra .1 uf, so I'll probably making a probe! It was an ambitious project for sure, but so rewarding!

I will send a painted picture when I finish it.

By the way, does anyone know if ethernet wires are ok to use? They aren't quite 22 gage, but they are pretty close.

Thanks again for all of the help. I've got a lot to learn.

[Will.mendil]

It does not matter what wire you use asking as it is conductive . Ethernet wire could be a good idea I got some broken ones laying around I might check it. I just bought a spool of 350m but is 30 gage so must too small I just finished a pedal with it. I'll wait for a tube to arrive before I can test it but there is no reason for it not to work. It s more a problem I solidity vs flexibility.

My first pedal was my own mod of a MXR+ I ve added a lot of mods on it so I don't feel that the TS is that hard when you get the PCB made.

I only have one note. Is it me or do you solder through the top I the PCB? ( where the components are) because I can see some caps burnt. This is my opinion but even if you have through holes that can no soldered on either side try to solder on the opposite side to the components. It will make a much much cleaner result = more professional. But you'll get the hang of it.

Good luck and good job. Looking forwards to the finishing result.

[Will.mendil]

And regarding the picture I think photo bucket or Flickr allows you to post proper pictures. You'll get much more people seein it. I usual am not bothered following a link. Or if you have a smartphone tapatalk is great as it hosts the pictures for you ( I actually don know where though)

[Will.mendil]

Last advice: what I have seen (but always forget doing ) is use bluetack under your circuit when positioning your components. This will allow you to get the nice and steady when soldering since as everyone has realised now, hen making pedals you are always missing the extra hand

[PRR]

> I think photo bucket or Flickr allows you to post proper pictures.

So does the Imgur he used. Imgur even gives you a clean link for forum postings. But you have to look over to the side of the *page* to find the links for the *image*. Or "Get embed codes". Often "Large Thumbnail" works for forums.

[acehobojoe]

yea man, thanks! It's sounding good. I'll definitely do the bottom soldering from now on. one quick question though, do you know what causes switches to pop? Mine are popping quite loudly.. of course I painted it too.. and another thing, My volume has gone down! I don't know why, it just loses power, it came back for a minute though, I bet it's all ground related with the new paint.