DIY Fuzz Pedal Ground Question

[StevieRaincoats]

Hi, I'm making my first pedal and I got it working and sounding perfectly on a breadboard but when I remade the circuit and put that in a metal enclosure the output is very quiet with some fuzz and only the volume pot works.

I'm wondering how I am supposed to ground it to the enclosure. I have 3 pots and 2 metal jacks. What should be making conductive contact with the enclosure? I've tried all of them touching, none of them touching, and just input jack touching and none of these setups work properly.

It is very possible my error is somewhere else or multiple things but I just want to at least cross off grounding as an issue tonight lol:)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[idy]

Welcome to the forum.
Pictures would help. People here love them.

But in general, assuming the enclosure is metal and that your jacks are the ones where the metal sleeve touches the edges of the holes in the enclosure...

We run a ground wire to each jack
and the pcb
and, if there is an LED, and/or if we are grounding the input of the circuit when bypassed, one to the footswitch
and to the power jack (if you are using a battery and TRS switching, then the power jack goes to "ring" of one jack

And then all these (commonly black) wires go together. soldered into one batch.
Or all attached to one jack, or to the circuit board, or to a toothed washer around a jack or the footswitch. Almost anywhere.

There are fancy ways to ground enclosures; ground screws (drill a hole and thread or use nut or etc.) ground springs, etc etc. These are not usually necessary.

There are also horrible, no good, obsolete, very weak, no-no never do that ancient pedals that used the enclosure to ground one or more of the jacks. No ground wires to one or both jacks! This is horrible , not good, very weak and a no-no

[antonis]

There are also horrible, no good, obsolete, very weak, no-no never do that ancient pedals that used the enclosure to ground one or more of the jacks. No ground wires to one or both jacks! This is horrible , not good, very weak and a no-no

In case you didn't manage to scare OP enough, let's go past to pots grounding by soldering their back plates..

P.S.
Welcome also..

[StevieRaincoats]

Thanks for the welcome and the info and I'm sorry for the very delayed reply. I don't know why I didn't try it out of the enclosure first so I did that along with the method idy mentioned and I'm still getting the same result. Ive checked the circuit and the connections 10 times but I'm going to assume the error probably lies somewhere on the board. I have two sets of every piece so I soldered the second set of parts identical to the set thats on the breadboard so I'm very surprised I am getting the error. If I ever solve this I'll let you know but I'm very close to giving up lol:)

[ElectricDruid]

You can't give up yet! You haven't even shown us a picture! We're *really good* at spotting errors! No, honest, we are. We gets lots of practice with our own stuff is why

It doesn't sound like a complicated fix from your description. There's something off somewhere, and if someone here can spot it and you fix it, the thing will come back to life, no bother.

[antonis]

I'm wondering how I am supposed to ground it to the enclosure.

In case of plastic (non-conductive sleeve) IN-OUT jacks, like below:



any of Black, Blue or Violet wires could be connected to enclosure..

[GibsonGM]

Go with Antonis' pic above (hey look, it even has his name on it!).  Don't be a hero...some don't ground the output jack, hoping the enclosure will do it for them. It will - until that jack comes loose (inevitable).  Then it goes "BRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!"    You won't get a ground loop on most DIY effects; not 'high powered' enough for those currents to do much.

Don't use pots as ground, it's ok if they touch the enclosure with their body, just don't solder grounds to them etc    And welcome to the forum!

[antonis]

Then it goes "BRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Could you plz depict it in sheet music or tablature, Sir..??

[GibsonGM]

I'm not sure bass clef has enough additional ledger lines to go so low!   

[Phend]

Make sure the "barrel" part of both input and output jacks are connected together at all times.
Over looked by many. Applies to the most simple Fuzz or complex Unobtainum effect.
Pulled my hair out because of that missing connection on my first build, got it working but still missing my hair.

[GibsonGM]

Don't be afraid to use the continuity function on your meter to make DARN sure which tab goes to which part of the jack, too    The barrel is grounded, the tip is your in to / out from the board...