ITS8 problems - PLEASE HELP ME!

[aaron]

For my first build I chose the General Guitar Gadgets ITS8. I put it all together and it all looked good but when i went to test it the led lit for a second then a small poof of smoke came from the diode D5 (which they say is unnecessary and could just be a jumper) I replaced it and that one cooked also so i tried just the jumper and get nothing. The one constant in all of this is that my battery gets hot very quickly. I get sound in bypass and did get a faint signal in the moment before the diode cooked. Anybody have any ideas? -AARON

[sean k]

Check the battery orientation buddy, if it round the wrong way you'll smoke the diode as it tries to sink all the battery current to ground, or check the diode orientation as if its the wrong way round it'll do the same. Your btteries getting hot because the current draw is far too great so one of the other is happening... more than likely. Test it without IC's and get the right reading on power pins and bias then put the IC's in if everything is right.

[aaron]

I had the diode with the side with the black ring going into the circle shaped hole and the other side into the square shaped hole. Is that right?  Since i cooked both diodes they gave me I'm just running a jumper between the two holes like the directions say is ok. I also took out C12 and the power supply jack since i only use batteries just to remove some variables but still no sound and hot battery.