Please help troubleshoot a Fuzz Factory clone

[MiguelDamas]

Quick update - it's alive. Bypass works fine. It's almost 2AM here so I can't play it very loud but it seems the gate doesn't work too well or there's something wrong with the grounding as it can get quite noisy. But it sure is fuzzy.

Thanks for all your help so far.

[PRR]

Happy it works.

Tips for the next crisis:

> jack ... shorting out against the back of the pot.
> I put electrical tape on the back of the pots (is this bad practice?)

Electrical tape under pressure will fail, eventually.

Since it is already touching, fatter plastic (milk jug) will probably lead to contact trouble.

Rotate the jack so the finger does not hit anything with plug inserted.

You could have detected this much sooner by checking BOTH ways. In hot to out hot, in ground to out ground, both zero (like probes touching). AND hot to ground. H-G should be infinity ("OL" on many digital ohm meters; same as probes not touching).

You may have to check this with plugs (NOT connected to anything). Often input jacks are wired to short-out H-G when no plug is inserted. And in this case, your jack finger may have been clear with no plug, but deflected with plug in.

[duck_arse]

yep, 6 on the pcb.

I'll redo the connections and measure again. Pardon my ignorance but where would I get ~9V readings? Following that troubleshooting guide, I only measured voltage where the positive wires connect (and resistance where the ground wires go). Where should I be taking voltage readings after I redo the wiring between "6" and the gate pot?

Thanks again.

sorry, misunderstanding. you aren't supposed to get ~9V readings, but your posted readings showed you had. sometimes, if a ground connection is not made properly, the circuit will float to the nearest voltage, often the supply voltage, and the meter is fooled into reading about 9V. and the common point of your pots was pad 6 on pcb, so if that connection was bad ......

and well done on the debug.

[MiguelDamas]

Thanks everyone for your help. Having gone through a million Youtube videos I think my issues with noise and how the gate works were just a Fuzz Factory acting like a Fuzz Factory.

It sounds pretty good, I think:

DEMO

I'm quite happy with this for a first build. I like the spartan look:



Now that I've found myself a new hobby I'm going to read up on the basics before bothering you guys with stupid questions. But again, thanks for all your help!