Electra distortion won't work

[garybee]

Hey everybody, I'm going to keep it short because I'm approaching the end of my rope. Would love some pointers as to why this Electra distortion won't work. I've built easily more than 10 various overdrives and one of them kind of worked. Here's pics

[idy]

I've built easily more than 10 various overdrives and one of them kind of worked.

Persistent one you are. You must really want to make noise.
Electra is a good choice because can't get much simpler.'
Always test before boxing. So much easier. Trouble shooting is eliminating possibilities.
Does the bypass work?

Really hard to see... no pic of solder side of board. We can see the soldering needs help. If you've tried ten times, it seems like you are all in. Make sure you have a good iron with the right temperature, and tip, and good solder. You deserve it. Watch some videos about soldering. They are as full of joy as cat videos. Avoid the ones of cats soldering though. They are not trustworthy.

Also for next time you should look into wire you can love, a good skinny gauge. And learn to "tin" the end of stranded wire. It looks like you are using solid core? OK for things that you aren't going to wiggle. Wires to the board are better stranded. Especially if you are going...wiggle them.

One approach is to make a signal tracer, just an instrument cable with a capacitor soldered to one end (center) and alligator clip to the shield/ground. Then you can find where the sound dies. And you will then have an essential tool you will use over and over.

Next time test before boxing. This time... tell us if bypass works, get a pic of the solder side of the board, can you post the layout you used?

[ElectricDruid]

Avoid the ones of cats soldering though. They are not trustworthy.

Always full of good solid advice you can rely on, this place.

[Rodgre]

Great advice from Idy.

I will say that looking back on my thousand years of building pedals (since the 80s!) the biggest difference in my consistence of circuits that worked from the get-go was keeping my builds neat. I keep the wiring short and use my own standardized color scheme (for instance, red and black are + and - from power and ground, yellow is input and orange is output, pots and other external controls/switches get blue, brown, purple, etc...) Being consistent in that way makes it much easier to trace wiring when there is an issue. Avoid lead dress that's like spaghetti. Use wire that is a decent size - not too heavy or too thin of a gauge. I try to always use teflon-insulated wire as the insulation doesn't melt when you solder for too long (and try not to do that either!)

I will always check the circuit outside of the enclosure first, often by tack-soldering my "workbench" input, output and power jacks to it, just to confirm that we have liftoff. It's so much easier to troubleshoot outside of the enclosure, especially if you know that the input and output wiring is good (and without the bypass switch in the circuit). The more you can rule out when troubleshooting, the better.

When everything is boxed up with the bypass footswitch inline, you have a lot of extra stuff to make sure is working: The grounding of the enclosure to the jacks as well as to the circuit and to the - of the power supply. Making sure the + of the power supply is not shorted to ground anywhere. Making sure the input or output "hot" connections aren't shorted to ground anywhere. Making sure the footswitch is wired properly. Making sure the footswitch is functioning properly (those lugs don't like a lot of heat so don't spend too much time when soldering to them as they can have a tendency to fail on the inside and you wouldn't know it unless you put a meter on it). If you check it outside of the box first, all of those things would already be ruled out, pretty much.

If you can isolate it to the circuit itself, first make sure that + is getting where it should get and that ground is connected to where it should be (typically, the - of the power/battery, the ring of the input AND output jacks as well as on any pot that shunts to ground at one end of the rotation. Ground should all test for continuity when you put your meter on any one of those locations. So if you know power is good, check to see that the input signal is getting continuity into the circuit. You can use/build yourself an audio probe that's hooked up to a small amp and touch it to where the input signal comes in. Do you hear your guitar there? Yes? then move to after the next component, usually the input cap. Got signal there? Good. Then keep tracing the audio through the circuit until it stops. That will tell you where the fault is. Does it stop after the transistor? Maybe the transistor is bad? Maybe the leads are incorrect? This has been the best way for me to suss out a problem in a new build. It's usually a really easy fix if there is just NO signal at all. It gets a little more dicey when you have a faint or badly distorted signal that you need to trace to a fault somewhere that might be a misbiased or bad active component/transistor, etc.

Roger

[LaloFP]

Make sure you have a good iron with the right temperature, and tip, and good solder. You deserve it.

I remember when I bought my second soldering iron and I thought "wwoow I know how to solder". Buy a good one, with a healthy tip

[antonis]

Your enclosue can easily accommodate 3-4 Electra Distortions..
No need for tight layout..

[GibsonGM]

I think he may want to add a Mosfet Boost to the output of the Electra, that would be a good use of the extra space...

[antonis]

a Mosfet Boost

Long time to propose it, Sir..

[Mark Hammer]

#1: When building anything that uses discrete transistors, ALWAYS confirm the pinouts.  Things you may think are E-B-C might be E-C-B, and pinouts may be listed looking at the flat side, rather than the round side.  This is why it's always good to have a DMM with an hfe tester and associated socket.  A "plausible" reading will confirm that all the pins you think are E, B, and C, actually ARE that.

[GibsonGM]

As has been said, I cannot tell you how many times I went thru this as a noob because I added the bypass switch before I was sure that the circuit worked.  Hours and hours later, I would come to find an error in switch wiring after I had wasted time monkeying with the board.

Make many jumpers (stranded wires with small alligator clips on the ends) and use them to connect temporary in/out jacks to a board.  Make a battery snap with alligator clips on its ends to give the circuit power.    Test with an amp before hard-wiring anything.  Then any further issue is almost certainly in the stomp switch/DC power jack.

Make a proper audio probe 'just in case' and follow instructions above.  I used a high voltage cap in mine so I can use it on tube amps too (say 600V, it's covered in shrink tube now can't see it).   Make a small audio oscillator for signal injection (RG Keene's, Quick & Dirty Audio Oscillator is mine), or set up your phone to provide this for you...

You certainly have the interest Gary, set up a few good habits like this and you will have a couple of dozen working pedals in no time!   

[antonis]

Make many jumpers (stranded wires with small alligator clips on the ends) and use them to connect temporary in/out jacks to a board. 

or make use of them as avatar..

[Phend]

What's wrong with it. Looks distorted to me.
April 1, has long since passed.
An ED doesn't use 2 feet of wire.
Buy a good scope.

[bluelagoon]

A bit rough Phend, LOL "2 feet of wire "
but have to agree, looks a bit like a rats nest in there.
Ah the good ol days of first effect pedal building.

[pacealot]

No-one has invoked the magic word "breadboard" yet. I feel that it is incumbent upon someone to do so here — so I guess it'll be me then...

[duck_arse]

#1: When building anything that uses discrete transistors, ALWAYS confirm the pinouts.

#1A: make sure you have wired to the correct side of those plastic I/O jacks before you cut the spare lugs off.

Make a proper audio probe ...

one important point, you really do need to tell us what the problem item does or doesn't do, how you think it doesn't work. otherwise, we will derail the thread with our endless conjecture and maxims in very short time.

breadbo .... oh.

[Phend]

Soldering to Aluminum, I guess, never worked well for me.
But we were all beginners once as bluelagoon says.

[bluelagoon]

Hey , who you callin bluegoon 

[duck_arse]

Hey , who you callin bluegoon 

didn't I see you, standing alone?

[deadastronaut]

you need another wire on the 3pdt switch going from bottom middle to top left....

by the looks of it.