busted modded big muff

[violatedpedalboards]

Well my modded big muff which I LOVE is out of commission. I went in to do some cleaning up inside the pedal which involved shortening a few wires going to a couple pots, and I decided I would try a zener diode to see what it sounded like as I can never leave good enough alone. Now I have nothing coming through when the effect is turn off, LED still works bypass works great. I just spent 2 hours undoing all of my mods and I still have nothing through when the effect is turned on. I ran through the pedal with my  DMM and heres what I got.

Battery 7.4V it was the only one I had Im a wall wart kind of guy.
Q1                                       
E1 6.3V,
E2 30.5MV
E3 185MV

Q2
E1 1.4MV
E2 .3MV
E3 0V
Q3
E1 9.8mv
E2 1.6MV
E3 .7mv

Q4 E1 4.2v
E2 3.6v
E31.2 V

I have no idea whats going on with the pedal and why its acting the way it is. It sounds like something is shorting out but its all good from what I can see. Please help, I love the way this pedal sounds and I am ready to throw it out of freakin window right now.

[bumblebee]

I recently bought my second green sovtek(11th big muff, I now own 12 :lol:), as usual I modified it. It was fine, then I decided to swap something else, during this a trace broke, I didnt even know about it and i KNEW for a FACT that my mods work as I've done them time and time again to so many muffs. I was trouble shooting for ages, the DMM didnt even pick it up at first (I missed it while probing it) and the broken trace wasnt even in an area that I was working on but causing the tone knob to act up kinda acting like a sustain knob as well as tone.

The best thing you can do is DMM it from solder pad to solder pad and all the traces, also check for solder bridges (a common mistake) and all your wiring Lucky for you the big muff is a super simple circuit and there's really not much to it or that can go wrong with it either.

BTW,here's a list of  ideal V-ebc's for you, both were measured with a battery of around 9.7 volts for the first (I forgot to record it but this is about right) and 9.6 for the second set.


TRANSISTORS 2N5088:
1981 3034

Q1
E       B       C
.03    .63     3.98

Q2
E       B       C
.03    .64    4.00

Q3
E       B       C
.03    .63     4.00

Q4
E       B       C
1.22   1.82   4.00



TRANSISTORS 2N5088:
NYC RI 3003-A

Q1
E       B       C
.05    .65     4.34

Q2
E       B       C
.18    .77     4.71

Q3
E       B       C
.16    .75     4.62

Q4
E       B       C
.99    1.57   4.28