In Praise of "What to do when it doesn't work"

[Filament]

So I spent the last couple of nights building a Foxx Tone Machine clone because I love gnarly fuzz, what can I say?  I drilled the enclosure so that it would be laid out the same way as the original and everything.  I added an on/off LED and an Octave on/off LED which in hindsight really wasn't needed cause you know when this bad boy is on.  Anyhow, I fired it up tonight and it wasn't working.  Well, it was but the volume actually dropped when engaged and the fuzz was really thin and splatty, which sometimes isn't bad...but I digress. 

So I moved over to the computer to post for help and stopped myself because I hadn't yet measured voltages...I hadn't yet followed the guidelines set forth in the "What to do when it doesn't work" sticky.

I marched back downstairs and began measuring voltages.  Voltages that seemed strange to me, so strange in fact I decided to turn my transistors around.  I marched back upstairs, plugged that bad boy in and HO-LEE-SHE-IT it was alive.  The tone machine is GNARLY. 

Anyway, the point is the "What to do when it doesn't work" guidelines work and I'm glad to be writing you all about my new working pedal and not my crappy busted pedal.  Thanks!

[ayayay!]

Bless you!  Bless you!

[MikeH]

Whenever I build something and it doesn't work, the first thing I do is flip the trannys.  9 times out of 10...

[96ecss]

I can't remember how many times I fixed a problem with one of my builds just by following the procedures in that thread, without ever having to post a request for help.

Dave

[culturejam]

Whenever I build something and it doesn't work, the first thing I do is flip the trannys.  9 times out of 10...

My first-try troubleshooting steps are: 1) flip the trannies, and 2) check all the ground connections. That gets 9/10 for me.