Faint buzzing or crackling sound with pedal

[spargo]

I recently finished my first build and it worked on the first try!  It's based on the bluesbreaker schematic.  But one thing I did notice is that if I play very very quietly I can hear a faint buzzing sound in the amp, almost like a bit of crackling.  The interesting thing is that this even happens when the pedal is bypassed (it's true bypass), so I'm assuming it has nothing to do with the circuit.  Maybe the switch?  Anybody ever had something like this before?

[Schappy]

Sounds like you have a loose or poorly soldered wire on the switch or the wire to the input jack.

[petemoore]

Anybody ever had something like this before?
  Yupp, I stuck a different pedal right there to compare test, be just it's the pedal and just the pedal.
  Pretty hard to say from 'it crackles' at what point in the signal path the crackling is input.

[Quackzed]

i use flux, and have had 'dirty' residue burned flux schmutz on a board that crackles, cleaned it (scrubbed in sink wth old toothbrush ew....)
and solved it. other times the crackles are a product of bad solder joints or just hot transistors hit with to much current...
i try cleaning if its obviously visually a possibility...
hinky wires...
hinky caps...
?!? troubleshooting this type of symptom can be guesswork as its a consequence of many different issues...
look at the weakest link first.

[spargo]

My initial suspicion is a weak connection with the either the input or output jacks (or both), because the solder will never stick to them well, but I usually seem to be able to eventually put enough on to get the wire to stick to the thing.

Any tips for better solder sticking on the jacks?

[LucifersTrip]

My initial suspicion is a weak connection with the either the input or output jacks (or both), because the solder will never stick to them well, but I usually seem to be able to eventually put enough on to get the wire to stick to the thing.

Any tips for better solder sticking on the jacks?

Yes, use a larger more powerful iron (the small ones for pinpoint soldering don't get hot enough), scuff (make it rough instead of shiny) the area  of the jacks that you are soldering to and apply solder to the jacks & leads before soldering em...Quantity of solder is not the solution.

[Quackzed]

also a little flux paste helps solder to flow faster, works good for any parts that don't want to heat up. (esp. jacks).

[spargo]

So after playing the pedal for a couple hours last night, it started cutting in and out.  There was no feedback or crazy noise coming through the amp, but the signal (even the bypass signal) cut in and out for a minute like the guitar was being unplugged, then it went back to working fine.  Do you think this is more likely to happen with a loose ground connection or loose input/output connection?

After checking the true bypass switch and the I/O connections going to it with my multimeter, the connections all seem to work fine.  When the switch is bypassed I get a continuous signal from input to output, and all of the grounds seem to check out okay.

[Quackzed]

check the cables

[spargo]

The instrument cables?  They're fine.  I use them a few days a week with no problem until I used them with this pedal.

[Quackzed]

you could try bending the jack connectors towards their center a bit. to make sure they are making good contact.