Slow Gear woes

[jbgron]

Hi guys,

I spent the weekend building the ggg Slow Gear but when I switch on the effect there is only a very very faint sort of modulation effect.  Playing with the pots and trimpot do nothing but can cut the volume so I know the board is alive.  I've gone over the layout and wiring over and over again and I can't figure out whats wrong.  I've used all the parts listed in the project, no substitutes.  After searching the forum I found there are a lot of people that just can't get this thing to go, I'm just hoping that someone had the same problem as me and its an easy fix 

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Cheers

jbgron

[MarcoMike]

check the circuit with an audio probe and see how the signal is going through the "trigger" section... I solved my problems swapping transistors randomly 

[edd29]

Hi guys,

I spent the weekend building the ggg Slow Gear but when I switch on the effect there is only a very very faint sort of modulation effect.  Playing with the pots and trimpot do nothing but can cut the volume so I know the board is alive.  I've gone over the layout and wiring over and over again and I can't figure out whats wrong.  I've used all the parts listed in the project, no substitutes.  After searching the forum I found there are a lot of people that just can't get this thing to go, I'm just hoping that someone had the same problem as me and its an easy fix 

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Cheers

jbgron

check out this link http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=79568.msg658874#msg658874

[jbgron]

Thanks for the pointers guys.  I'll give it a shot after work tonight.

[sean k]

Mines not workin' again but I've upped the tantalum to a 4.7uf in parallel with a 6.8uf to try and increase the swell time but had it workin' fine with just a 4.7uf. So as long as everythin' else is right then that tantalum seems to be the important thing. I used a 2SK30A and if your using something else, 2N5457 etc, then moosapatamus's site has the info on different fets.

[jbgron]

Well I tried the 4.7 tantalum cap and I tried swapping out transistors but neither have made any difference.  I'm going to put this aside for a rainy day and build something that actually works to keep the addiction going. 

[oldrocker]

The thing to keep in mind when testing a slow gear is the pot positions.  The 10k trimmer has to be set right and the 2 pots have only one spot that will make it start working.  I had mine working for a week and didn't know it until I tweaked the knobs and found the sweet spot positions for all of the pots.  It can be tricky to get both knobs set to even know that the swell is working.

[edd29]

The thing to keep in mind when testing a slow gear is the pot positions.  The 10k trimmer has to be set right and the 2 pots have only one spot that will make it start working.  I had mine working for a week and didn't know it until I tweaked the knobs and found the sweet spot positions for all of the pots.  It can be tricky to get both knobs set to even know that the swell is working.

my slow gear is same like yours its need to tweak the pots and the trimmer to get work good.
I been fed up using this procedure thats why I switch to swell pedal using a metal pick is easy to use all control is 100% perfect.

[jbgron]

Oh so they're that sensitive?  There was a point last night when I was fiddling with the pots and trimmer and it sounded like it was working so I'll give it another go tonight.  I don't know how useful a pedal like this will be if its going to be that sensitive, are the original Boss pedals this sensitive?

Thanks everyone for all the tips, much appreciated.

[oldrocker]

Yeah this pedal isn't for everyone.  One draw back is that for the swell to work the guitar signal needs to die out completely before the next note is picked.  So for fast picking the slow gear is useless.  I like to use it behind a choppy tremolo to smooth it out.  Also it has a nice effect with delays for that reverse tape sound.  But like I said this pedal is cool to mess around with but for actual use in a pedal board I doubt it.

[jbgron]

Its alive!  That trimmer is damn sensitive but after a good half hour of fiddling I found the sweet spot.

Thanks again guys.

[Paul Marossy]

I gave up on mine. I just won't work. Oh well. 

[jbgron]

I did notice that my Slow Gear worked significantly better when I changed power supplies.  I think I originally had it running on my 300mA and it was working but still quite subtle but when I changed to my 1000mA it worked beautifully.  I'm yet to try it with a 9V battery.