Aion Refractor Troubleshooting

[jnash85]

I completed an Aion Refractor (Klone clone) and hooked it up last night. Bypassed I was getting a very low signal. With the pedal engaged it worked, but I still had to have the amp cranked for moderate level. After a little digging I found a thread where someone had the same issue. It was traced to R4 and R25 using a 560K resistor instead of the specified 560 resistor. I checked and sure enough, I made the same mistake.

So I pulled it apart, removed the two resistors, and replaced them with the correct ones. Now I am having a ton of problems. When the pedal is bypassed the knobs still affect the tone. When it is engaged, the level is very low. Even with the gain maxed out. Now with the pedal bypassed the gain knob is changing the tone. When it is maxed it seems to be at a normal level. When the gain knob is turned all the way down it greatly increases the bypassed volume. I did not notice these problems yesterday when I was using the wrong resistors.

Any ideas on what is wrong?

[jnash85]

Ok. I should have read the debugging guide before posting. Sorry. I have worked on it a bit more. Here's what I know.

The LED no longer lights up when powered on. I plugged a 9V battery clip -> dc jack converter in to power with a battery. The battery got hot. Looks like the adapter was + pin. How bad did I screw up doing this?

I went ahead and replaced the DC jack. When I power the pedal and measure the voltage from 9V to Ground (at the DC jack) I only get 1.13 VDC. That is all I can do tonight. If it is still worth investigating I will post the voltages from the IC's and diodes tomorrow evening.

[PRR]

You have a short across the battery.

That battery is probably trash now.

It would be MUCH easier to talk about with links to the exact plan you are working from (including schematic! you are past the build stage and into heavy thinking). While I could maybe Google something, it might not be the same one you have, and search-time subtracts from advice-time (and bed-time......)

[jnash85]

Here is a link to the project documentation, along with a schematic.

https://aionelectronics.com/project/refractor-centaur-overdrive/

[PRR]

Missing ground.
Switch wiring.

You may want to post photos of your build, even the info requested on The Debugging Page.

[aion]

Photos would be great, and voltages for each of the pins like Paul said. Here is what you are shooting for: (assuming 9.0 volt supply - give or take half a volt or so depending on your supply voltage)

IC1 - TL072
1 = 4.49
2 = 4.49
3 = 3.54 stable, 3.95 initial (cap charge bleeding down through the meter)
4 = 0.00
5 = 4.49
6 = 4.49
7 = 4.49
8 = 9.00

IC2 - TL072
1 = 4.55
2 = 4.49
3 = 4.49
4 = -8.59
5 = 4.49
6 = 4.49
7 = 4.44
8 = 16.23

IC3 - TC1044SCPA
1 = 9.00
2 = 4.59
3 = 0.00
4 = -4.22
5 = -8.59
6 = 4.09
7 = 5.59
8 = 9.00

Many times when I get bizarre problems like that, I just go back and heat up all the solder joints with a dab of fresh solder. That helps fix any bad joints, and also has the benefit of forcing you to look at every square millimeter of the board and sometimes you notice a solder bridge or something else that might be causing problems.

Also, I wouldn't recommend using a battery... since it has a charge pump, it's not like a Boss pedal that will just start to sound a little weak once it hits 7 volts or so. In this case, the lower the battery gets, the more unstable the circuit becomes. This is why the original unit just shipped with its own wall wart and didn't even have a place for a battery. So you may actually have a regulation issue and the negative voltage isn't being supplied at all. Again, taking measurements will help a lot with finding out whether this is the case.

[duck_arse]

aion - IC2 shows -9V and +16V supply. are those numbers correct?

[jnash85]

Ok. I hooked it up to a wall wart. Off the wall I was getting 9.77V. When I plugged it in and checked the 9V pad to ground I got 1.14V. Here is a link to some pictures and the other values:


http://imgur.com/a/QY5vu

IC1
1 = 0.13
2 = 0.14
3 = 0.6
4 = 0.5 mV
5 = 0.61
6 = 0.61
7 = 0.04
8 = 0.74

IC2
1 = 0.46
2 = 0.48
3 = 0.41
4 = 0.60
5 = 0.46
6 = 0.48
7 = 0.42
8 = 0.74

IC3
1 = 0.58
2 = 0.57
3 = 0.6 mV
4 = 0.58
5 = 0.54
6 = 0.07
7 = 0.58
8 = 0.54

[jez79]

is your power jack wired backwards?
looks like center pin is going to +V and shield is going to GND
should be the other way around
run the black wire to PGND and the green one to +9V

[bluebunny]

+1 - good spot.  The big lug on those DC jacks is GND.  The other two are for +V to your board and for the optional battery.

[jnash85]

Thanks, that was part of the problem. I can play it now and there is no volume drop. The final issue is the knobs have effect on the sound when it is bypassed. The gain knob especially. The last thing I can think of is I got the switch wired wrong. I used a special PCB from AION and tried to look at pics of successful builds. I have linked another image.

http://imgur.com/a/YwBvm

Here are the new voltages:

IC1
1 = 4.88
2 = 4.88
3 = 3.73
4 = 0
5 = 4.86
6 = 4.88
7 = 4.93
8 = 9.76

IC2
1 = 4.94
2 = 4.88
3 = 4.87
4 = -9.33
5 = 4.87
6 = 4.88
7 = 4.82
8 = 17.9

IC3
1 = 9.76
2 = 5.24
3 = 0
4 = -4.3
5 = -9.33
6 = 4.88
7 = 6.3
8 = 9.76

[Gus]

Maybe it is just me but I find all the Klon cloning distasteful

[rumbletone]

Maybe it is just me but I find all the Klon cloning distasteful

Why is it different from cloning any other circuit (assuming, in all cases, that no IP rights are infringed)?

[aion]

aion - IC2 shows -9V and +16V supply. are those numbers correct?

Yeah, there is a charge pump that both inverts and doubles the voltage. The audio path around that op-amp is biased at 4.5V, so it essentially has +/-13.5v to work with... strange, but it works!

[aion]

Thanks, that was part of the problem. I can play it now and there is no volume drop. The final issue is the knobs have effect on the sound when it is bypassed. The gain knob especially. The last thing I can think of is I got the switch wired wrong. I used a special PCB from AION and tried to look at pics of successful builds. I have linked another image.

http://imgur.com/a/YwBvm

Here are the new voltages:

IC1
1 = 4.88
2 = 4.88
3 = 3.73
4 = 0
5 = 4.86
6 = 4.88
7 = 4.93
8 = 9.76

IC2
1 = 4.94
2 = 4.88
3 = 4.87
4 = -9.33
5 = 4.87
6 = 4.88
7 = 4.82
8 = 17.9

IC3
1 = 9.76
2 = 5.24
3 = 0
4 = -4.3
5 = -9.33
6 = 4.88
7 = 6.3
8 = 9.76

The switch looks like it's oriented correctly, but since it's a pin version instead of solder lugs, it's not as easy to tell. If you have another one laying around, I'd use a multimeter to make sure that it switches "vertically" instead of "horizontally" (i.e. in columns and not rows).

I would also double-check the ground connection on the switch and make sure you get good continuity between the board and your chassis ground point (one of the jacks). It may be that you are hearing both the bypassed and the effect signal at once, which would tell me that the effect signal isn't properly being grounded in bypass mode.

[jnash85]

The common pins are the three in the center going horizontally. Is that correct?

x x x
x x x  <--- These three are common.
x x x

The ground connection is good from the switch.

[FastEdTex]

The common pins are the three in the center going horizontally. Is that correct?

x x x
x x x  <--- These three are common.
x x x

The ground connection is good from the switch.

Did you ever get your problem resolved?
I'm building the same pedal now and was interested in any resolution/advise.
Is the fact that this is a "buffered" bypass and not a true bypass have anything to do with the knobs affecting the "dry" signal?