ANOTHER BYPASS QUESTION

[Purplebuttcheese]

Look; I know some elitist will come in here sooner rather than later so let me just get this over with. I've got a modded fuzz face circuit, and the bypass is not working out. I've tried every bypass I could find online; NONE of them worked. After trying my own, I finally got it down. My question is: why do some bypass wiring ways work better/worse for different circuits?

[Purplebuttcheese]

content://media/external/file/38040

[EBK]

Look; I know some elitist will come in here sooner rather than later so let me just get this over with. I've got a modded fuzz face circuit, and the bypass is not working out. I've tried every bypass I could find online; NONE of them worked. After trying my own, I finally got it down. My question is: why do some bypass wiring ways work better/worse for different circuits?

Welcome to the forum!  We do have some elitists here, but they are all very nice and very patient.  Folks here tend to help because they like to see everyone get pedals working, not because it inflates any egos.  But, let's push all of that aside for a moment.  You are here to learn, like the rest of us.  Someone (perhaps many someones) will have information we can all learn from, so let's get to work.   

Regarding your question, could you provide some additional information?
1.  What did you start with?  Could you give us a link to a schematic or a picture?

(My goal is to help in a friendly, honest, objective, non-judgmental way.)

[bloxstompboxes]

I just want to chime in and say welcome! However, I don't want to know what purplebuttcheese is. Sounds like a terrible condition though. As far as the bypass, I assume you mean something like true bypass? The one I use is the 5th one down on the page, I think, over at tonepad.com in the pdf.

[Purplebuttcheese]

I need someone with a huge ego who knows exactly what they're doing! Haha straight forward answers from people who know the most are the best. I tried to upload a picture, but it doesn't look like it worked sadly. Here's a link to it.
http://m.imgur.com/7VcwiDa I know it's not the way schems are drawn, I just understand it better this way.

[Purplebuttcheese]

Also I should mention; I'm not using a battery in this (not enough room in the enclosure). I shorted the 2 positive leads on the DC jack.

[samhay]

>I've tried every bypass I could find online; NONE of them worked

What do you mean by they didn't work? They didn't bypass signal, they popped, the circuit burst into flames?

[R.G.]

You might want to read "The Technology of Bypasses" at geofex.com. Lots of good how-to-think-about-it in there.

[Purplebuttcheese]

Well I knew at least one person was gonna say something about that geo stuff.... Look I've read it all. Also I've read the the diy FAQ on here. As for the bypass, it wasn't wasn't putting out any guitar signal. And look that's not the problem anymore I just wanted to know why do some bypass wiring ways work better/worse for different circuits? I've tried bypasses before that I've found online and they worked but then I change circuits and that way stops working so I try another way and it works.

[EBK]

So far, you've shown us one diagram of a working bypass.

Is your question really why the bypass in your diagram worked for your particular fuzz face circuit, but no other bypass that you tried worked for the same circuit?

Could you tell us anything about the different bypass schemes you've tried?  An example, maybe?

I hate to ask this, so please don't consider it an attack, but are you just venting frustration and seeking validation?

[antonis]

I've tried bypasses before that I've found online and they worked but then I change circuits and that way stops working so I try another way and it works.

ADMIRABLE CLARITY...!!!! 


Say no more or you'll give room to elitists..

[EBK]

Regarding your hypothesis, that "some bypass wiring ways work better/worse for different circuits," you must be willing to accept the following potential explanation:

An incorrectly wired bypass will work worse for any circuit. 
Attempting to wire a different circuit in the same way may result in new errors being introduced or old, undiscovered errors being fixed.

[digi2t]

Maybe if you can visualize how the internals of a bypass switch (3PDT in this case) work, it might go a long way to helping you understand what's going on. Here's the switch, and an illustration of where the contacts are in one or the other position;



As you can see, the middle lugs are the "commons", in other words, they either flip up, or flip down. Now, get out your highlighter pen. If you compare this image, with the drawing that you posted, you should be able to trace out where the signal is going in either position. Imagine all the contacts DOWN in your drawing, now trace from the input jack where the signal is going. You'll see that in that position, the signal starts at the input jack, goes to the circuit in, then the circuit out goes to the output jack. The third section of the switch simply turns on the LED by connecting to ground. In the UP position, the input jack simply goes through the switch now, and over to the output jack, bypassing the circuit altogether. But... if we look a little closer, we see that the circuit IN is now going to ground. Why? This is a scheme that is used for some effects to kill any possible noise from the effect bleeding into your audio. You see this often with effects that use LFO's. By grounding the circuit input (not the input jack), we can kill any noise from being generated by the effect while in bypass.

I hope that's clearer for you. Like I said, visualize what's going on in the switch (where the contacts are), and the rest, your brain should be able to follow though.

[slacker]

Here's a link to it.
http://m.imgur.com/7VcwiDa I know it's not the way schems are drawn, I just understand it better this way.

That's probably the most common true bypass wiring method there is, there's examples of it all over the net. You've been really unlucky if you've managed to find bypasses that don't work.or only work with some circuits, where the hell have you been looking

[vigilante397]

You've been really unlucky if you've managed to find bypasses that don't work.or only work with some circuits, where the hell have you been looking

Agreed. That wiring is pretty standard, it's honestly kind of impressive that you found not just one but multiple that didn't work.

Back to your original question, I feel like it's a flawed question. I have been using the exact same bypass wiring, with absolutely zero variation, for years and on over a hundred pedals. I have never found a circuit that it "didn't work" on. True bypass is true bypass, and what works on one pedal should work on every other pedal.

[Purplebuttcheese]

I was probably just messing up the wiring then every time I tried it.

[EBK]

I was probably just messing up the wiring then every time I tried it.

It's at least a possibility.  I think the most telling part is this:

After trying my own, I finally got it down.

You definitely knew what you were doing before (it's clear from the diagram you produced), but you were not relying on yourself 100%, so you may have consistently made the same small error without realizing it (something simple and easy to miss, like a missing ground connection).  As soon as you slowed down and went through everything methodically without someone else's diagram in front of you, it all clicked.  I'd say keep that diagram you made yourself and use it every time in the future. 

[zombiwoof]

Is it a stock fuzz face that has been modded?.  All FF's have been wired true bypass from the beginning.  If it is a home build, use the diagram that grounds the input to the circuit in bypass:

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_sw_dpdt_tb_gi.pdf

Just don't use too high a wattage iron and make quick clean connections, it's easy to melt the plastic switches by heating them too long or too much.

Al