Solution for a Bad Stone that wouldn't oscillate

[Sir H C]

So after a bunch of close but no cigars, I got the bad stone that would not oscillate to seem to work right repeatedly.

Solution?  Add a capacitor on the 1/2 voltage line to the top rail.  Seems that the cap to ground was causing the pedal to find a stable operating point with nearly no voltage on that node, adding the top cap made this a capacitive divider so that the voltage ramps up much faster (before it was the charge time for the top resistor).  Knock on wood, it will keep working.

[RaceDriver205]

where is this 1/2 voltage line?

[A.S.P.]

"fork"

[Sir H C]

If you look at the schematics you will see the two resistors from V+ to ground (think they are 10k each) with a large 100uF capacitor to ground dangling there.  The point with the 100uF is the 1/2 voltage point in question.  That huge cap takes a while to charge and the circuit gets caught in an operating point that it shouldn't be in (with the 4049/09 reverse biased) and stays there.  The other cap gets this kicking faster.