MicroFazer Build Help

[canman]

Hi everyone,

Yes...I'm new here!  I started building pedals over the summer and sadly, I'm now addicted haha.  I built a couple Ram's Heads and a Distortus Maximus and I've recently built up this MicroFazer from sabrotone.com (http://www.sabrotone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/MicroFazer.gif).  I'm hoping you guys can offer me some assistance, as I've struggled with this build... 

I'm running into volume and phasing problems.  When I run the guitar through the circuit with a fresh 9V battery, my volume seems to get cut in half or more.  When I mess with the trimpot, I can hear the phase effect working, but it doesn't do it automatically...I have to keep moving the trimmer in order to keep the phase going (if that makes sense).

The only substitutions I made were to the JFETs and the ICs...I used BF244A's for the JFETs and HA17458's for the IC.  (Both are supposed to work with this circuit, I'm told).  I did it on a stripboard and from what I can tell, all of my solder joints are good.  I haven't found any bridges so far.  I've checked and rechecked all of the pinouts, they are all accurate.  I built a JFET matcher and got the following results (these are the closest matches I got):

Q1: Idss...394, Vp...1688
Q2: Idss...386, Vp...1700
Q3: Idss...382, Vp...1696
Q4: Idss...378, Vp...1678

I know, these aren't perfect matches, but from what I have been reading, they will get me at least some kind of phase going.

I should mention that I did try all of the IC and JFETs backwards, just to see if I had done something wrong.  I'm hoping that didn't fry the components.  But for what it's worth, when I flipped everything back to how it is supposed to be, the same volume persisted.  (Oh...yes, I did socket the IC and JFETs)

Any thoughts?  I've been looking over the circuit for a week now and I can't for the life of me get it to work properly.  I would LOVE some help!

Thanks a ton everyone!

[jimilee]

Well you'll fry an IC putting it in backwards, but the jfets will be fine. Different jfets have different pin outs, did you turn them before or after you reversed the IC?

[canman]

Honestly, I don't remember...luckily I have some more IC's on hand.  But yeah, I can't remember when I turned around the JFETs.  I'm fairly certain I tried the JFETs both ways with the IC's in the right orientation and the backwards orientation.

[canman]

Also, is there a way to tell if the IC is for sure fried via DMM?

[GibsonGM]

An actual schematic would be helpful )

[StephenGiles]

Is this the circuit which incorrectly showed a squarewave LFO output?

[duck_arse]

hello and welcome, canman. go here and folow the instructions, then we can help.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=29816.0

[canman]

OK, here is the only schematic I could find of the MicroFazer...looks like the Sabro layout has been modified a bit, since I'm seeing 6 ICs in the schematic and only 4 in the layout. 

http://www.webphix.com/schematic%20heaven/www.schematicheaven.com/effects/univox_microfazer.pdf

[canman]

Update...got the LFO portion of the board to work.  I have phasing!

But the volume is still very low.  I tried all of my HA17458's...nothing helped.  Should I try a different opamp?

[StephenGiles]

Original circuit
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g3nnj3hr3vbi6e2/Univox_phaser.gif

appalling quality I know, somewhere I have the original,

[hab]

I basen the layout on this schematic:
http://analogguru.an.ohost.de/193/schematics/Univox_MicroFazer.gif