Flatline compressor LED staying on

[MrStab]

as it seems to work backwards, is it possible that my compressor is, in fact, the spawn of satan himself? because that would be pretty badass

SERIOUS UPDATE! holding my finger around the bottom pins of R8 & R9 makes it work! what does that mean? tried improving the joints for either but no go.

further update: if im touching both the guitar strings and the position i mentioned, it works right. narrowing it down here. some kind of ground fault?

[MrStab]

(sorry if i'm spamming here). i forgot to mention that i replaced R8 in the design with a 250k pot (meant to use 100k but evidently didn't).

okay, so if i touch the guitar and touch between the connected lugs on that pot (1&2) or the the "south" side of R8/R9 (row E), it works. getting signal from the pot and it seems to work as normal, though, so i don't know if it's worth desoldering and trying just a 47k in its place? the clues don't spell "short" to my limited brain capacity, but it definitely seems to be around that region at least...

Yet another annoying edit! i grounded lug 3 of the R8 pot and voila! works... for now at least. until i break it all again. light seems to stay on for a few seconds when i move it around so i'm not convinced it's done yet

[Kipper4]

Go on do it post some pics. If you've seen my circuit then you will know what a ghetto circuit looks like. Don't be ashamed it will help others help you.

[MrStab]

i will once i finish my equally-bad case! lol

thanks again, everyone. is grounding the lug on the pot/resistor-replacement something you should always do or is it compensating for a fault elsewhere? i thought that was only important for volume pots.

i had a really cool idea to put a 7-segment display in the case, as i worked out how to nubishly wire up the bigger ones, but i have a small one that needs to flicker between either digit and the simple 555 circuit i tried to build doesn't work (transferred the layout to stripboard myself, from some poorly-translated website, prolly the problem. lol). guess that's another thread though, one probably not relevant to this forum!

i still expect the compressor to die on me at some point so case not closed yet!

[deadastronaut]

i still expect the compressor to die on me at some point so case not closed yet!

that's optimism for ya!..

[MrStab]

lol! i was right, though! i organised the wires as nearly as i could (still not very neat), and it works for the most part, but the latest bug is it's screwed up and distorted. i suspect a switch/pot/jack wire inside has come loose or is touching something that it shouldn't... at least i f********* hope so!

coupla things: for some reason i used linear pots instead of log pots - despite reading i'd need them before ordering parts -  can i keep those & live? i'm sure i read somewhere that there was a way to compensate for that by changing a value somewhere, but i'd rather see if i can avoid resorting to that first as for the time being things seem okay (despite some distortion right at the end of the sustain pot, but who knows, that could come in handy one day. if i need that extra push over the cliff.).

also, the 100k (linear) pot i used for the "sensitivity" part only totally cuts out the LED at a certain setting, so should i swap it for a 50k to match the original 47k (R8) resistor more closely?

unfortunately the super-awesome 7-segment display idea i had (wiring it up manually without a controller) isn't really working out, as it seems i'd need to switch the ground position on this weird 10-pin 2-digit one i have, and i might need a 3DPT switch to even do it without turning off power to true bypass. and i'd need to flicker between digits - tried making a failed 555 flicker layout. shame. was gonna have it say "CP" and maybe "Eq" or something if i fitted a basic tone circuit in there. for no other reason than it looking "way cool". lol
i can get it to say C, at least!