Easy Face cutting out

[ryanator27]

Hello Folks, hope you can help!

I built the easy face, and it sound fantastic.  I'm experiencing a strange problem and I'm not sure how to solve it.  I've gone over my solder joints with a magnifying glass, and they seem fine, and I've resoldered my input jack, although I don't believe this was the problem.

I can turn it on and it will work for a while.  If I press the button to bypass, bypass always works fine, but sometimes I'll press the switch again, and get noise often times this can be remedied by unplugging the input jack and plugging it back in a few times (slowly seems to work best). This is why I thought it might be a jack problem, BUT!  I'll be playing it for 4 or 5 minutes, and my signal will start to fade away, until I don't have one.  go to bypass and all is well, but now I have the same issue without pressing the stomp switch.
This is intermittent.  Sometimes I'll turn it on and its fine, other times nothing.  I'm not sure where to start, but is it possible there are some bad caps?
any help would be appreciated. This is my first pedal build...and when the easy face works, boy do i like it. 
thanks,
Ryan

[ryanator27]

so just to clarify, the problem is when the circuit is engaged, and it happens in the middle of playing, or when I switch to bypass, and switch back again later.

[dennism]

I've encountered similar issues that were traced to either a bad solder connection on the switch itself or an internal problem in the switch caused by overheating.    Some footswitches can be very sensitive to too much heat and the lugs can fail internally.

[ryanator27]

Thanks Dennism:
Would this switch issue still be the case when first turning it on as well?  I'll turn it on for the first time in a morning, and I'll get the issue, until i unplug and plug the input jack a few times.
thanks

[thermionix]

Try jiggling the footswitch button, and pushing it lightly, not enough to click.  See if you can get it to act up.  If that does nothing, try wiggling the wires inside while it's on, especially the wires going to the jacks.

[duck_arse]

can we see a photo of your (possibly offending) switch, please?

and, obviously, welcome to the forum.

[ryanator27]

Hello folks:

So I changed the switch last night.  I plugged her in this morning, and played with no problems.  turned the switch off and on and kept playing, again no problems.  I put the pedal on bypass, left for 5 minutes, and when I came back and engaged the  circuit same issue.   There was some 'windy noise' but no signal.  I was poking around underneath and nothing seemed to make a difference with connections.  So I stared at it for a little while while I was thinking, and all of a sudden I could hear the signal kicking back in, kind of like turning a volume up at a medium speed. I played again and it worked.  But I didn't do anything or move anything for it to kick back in.  I ruled out super hero mind powers, but that's about it.  Are these symptoms something that may be related to a component on the board, or would this still be more of a connection (or possibly 2nd bad switch?) issue?  Its the random works/doesn't work that's really throwing me.

[ryanator27]

follow up: Just went back to it and the signal engaged sounded clean and not too loud.  Unplugged the guitar input jack and plugged back in slowly and it kicked in again.  This works some of the time to get it working for a little while.  But with the other symptoms i'm not thinking its the jack.

[ryanator27]

follow up follow up:

i changed out the stereo input jack, and I changed the dc plug as well.  Played it for around 2 minutes, then it cut out again.

[Chillums]

I had a similar problem on a mutron micro V build I just completed.   Turned out to be I didn't have pin 3 of the op amp hooked up because the pin fell out of the socket.  Do you have a schematic?  I would reflow everything again.   Maybe it's the chord your using?

[ryanator27]

hmm..well, I'll reflow everything (but the circuit board, as I've already reflowed that thing a few times).  No chips in this one. it's a pretty basic design...part of the reason I chose it as my first pedal.   
the schematic for the easy face can be found here:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_ff5_sc_easy.pdf
thanks

[ryanator27]

hmm..well, I'll reflow everything (but the circuit board, as I've already reflowed that thing a few times).  No chips in this one. it's a pretty basic design...part of the reason I chose it as my first pedal.   
the schematic for the easy face can be found here:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_ff5_sc_easy.pdf
thanks

Oh and definitely not the chords. Everything works good and clear when bypassed.

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