All my builds eat up batteries when nothing is plugged in.

[antonis]

I'm thinking a good amount of filtering would be required to use phone chargers for an audio application?

I totally agree with you Sir, only if "good" is replaced with "huge"..

[soma89]

Here are photos of both the treble booster and the lpb1 that I rebuilt in the original enclosure.

To continue on-topic, perhaps OP could post pics of their wiring, because it sure sounds like something a simple look-over would solve...

Let me know if something isnt clear.

[bartimaeus]

Sadly, there is no universal standard for where tip, ring, ground and default (closed circuit) lugs are situated around the perimeter of a stereo or mono jack.  I've learned this lesson by falling prey to the problem soma89 describes, myself.  The only solution is to follow the path from jack contact to solder-lug visually, to verify what goes where on THIS particular jack.  I suppose it would help one used the same brand of jack all the time, but then so many of us only buy a jack here and there, and not in the thousands from the same supplier.  So we're always adapting to the "new" jacks.

Incidentally, I'll safely assume I am not the only well-seasoned builder who has foolishly and absent-mindedly soldered leads to the "other" set of lugs on one of this type of jack, and wondered why the circuit wasn't working in either effect or bypass mode!    Damned confusing symmetry!!! 

the continuity test on your multimeter is your best friend. test all connections with nothing plugged in and see what connects. then plug in a jack and see what's connected and what's not.

[pacealot]

Looks like the Rangemaster has the wrong input jack for what you need. You'll want a three-conductor open terminal jack (Switchcraft 12B or equivalent), and the positive battery lead (I'm assuming, based on what I can see, that it's a PNP negative ground version) should go to the "middle" or ring terminal on its own. The rest of the circuit ground should go to one of the jack's sleeve terminal. (Other, better minds than mine can chime in on the best way to connect ground to shield/enclosure to minimise possible earth/ground loops, etc., but for a Rangemaster it's probably not a matter of great concern.)

Edit: FSFX's first drawing in reply #2 shows the correct wiring.

It's harder to see with the LPB-1, but so far it looks like your slide switch is correctly connected to disconnect the +9V from the circuit when switched off, so it's not clear why that one should still be draining the battery — unless the switch is getting accidentally knocked back on (which has happened to me innumerable times with those vintage E-H gadgets, simply because it's so easy to do). If so, a good solution would be to wire an input jack similarly as I described for the Rangemaster (reversing the polarity of course, assuming I was correct earlier about the RM being PNP), so it also can't power up when not plugged in, regardless of switch position.

[GibsonGM]

The standard 'jack touches enclosure' ground loop won't cause any issues in the vast, vast majority of low-voltage builds.  There is simply too little current flowing around the loop to do much.   Many find that the surety of including a ground wire to the output jack rather than use the enclosure also outweighs any concerns - the 'cost' of not doing so can be SO ugly lol.

Perhaps one would get into it if they were doing a nice clean chorus or something...for anything 'gainey' like a booster/distortion, it's highly likely that the active device(s) are going to cause far more noise than such a minor ground loop.   As always, YMMV!