what are your unsuccessful builds?

[nelson]

I am sort of sick of seeing "build reports" of the same old circuits, fuzz faces, TS808 etc.


This is perhaps a bit more interesting.

What builds have you done that despite your best efforts just WILL NOT work? What builds lay there unboxed, mocking you with their very presence? I have only been doing this since march. I usually debug and debug till it fires up. However, I have a few "zombie" circuits.

I will kick it off.

I have one Non working Paralell universe I havent started debugging yet, Dragonfly's vero layout.
I have 3, yes THREE Clone theory boards fully populated and not working (dont ask).
I have one CD4049 experiment that I think the CD4049 chip blew up on.
I have a non-working tube amp, I bought thinking I could repair.



So how about it, what haunts your bench?

[Paul Marossy]

Boss Slow Gear clone. Won't work for anything. 
Tim Escobedo's FET Driver. Had some kind of weird biasing problem. Never got it to work. 
My very first Shaka Tube build was possessed. It was doing all sorts of weird stuff.
My first BSIAB (original version) was also possessed. I reworked it and got it to work, though.

[bluesdevil]

I must've put together nearly a few dozen circuits and have a 99.9% success rate so far..... my perfect record was foiled by the deceptively simple "Twang-o-Matic". Couldn't find the exact trannies, but tried EVERYTHING else and still would not fire up like it should.
      I've built a few things that were disappointing and never ended up boxed or just pulled apart for other projects, but that mysterious "Twang-o-matic" kicked my ass and sent me reeling with frustration.

[troubledtom]

CA ringmod
     - tt

[jmusser]

So far,the Ring Frobnicator didn't work, but I used the Hollis schematic which had errors, and need to tear it apart and build it to RGs version. Tim's Octup circuit made a fair OD, but never made it to octave land no matter what I did to it. The Push-Me Pull You wouldn't work at all with the stock transistors with my equipment, but eventually someone came out with subs for them, and it worked fine after that. Last but not least, is Marcos and my XORUS circuit, which worked great when I first built it, but only fair since. That one has been especially frustrating. I work on it a little and then let it sit for awhile. On the other side of the coin, there have been many circuits that sounded just like the original samples, and there have been some that turned out way better than my wildest dreams. The 3 Legged Dog, Easy Drive, Digital Octaver Fuzz and Jordon Bosstone come to mind.

[bwanasonic]

I basically don't attempt too much I'm not sure won't work. In other words I build the same boring circuits your tired of reading about! I am also a " I will either get this to work, or smash it into pieces" type person. I haven't had to smash anything yet…  I would like to build some synth filter modules, but I will most likely go the kit route. Time-based effects aren't on my to-do list for the forseeable future. And just for the hell of it, I'm knocking on wood after posting this.

Kerry M

[brett]

Hi.
About 10 germanium fuzzfaces
An easyface (!! )
A Sans-amp 21 (which might have been designed to sound like that, but I'm not sure ?)

I've also got about forty or fifty boards from things that either didn't work coz I mis-designed them, or maybe they came out of toys or cheap kits, etc.

Interesting thread.

[nelson]

Argh, just had a cursary glance over my parallel universe build. I forgot to ground pin 4! 


Hope this one is as good as its reputation.

[nightingale]

shin-ei-companion fuzz on a piece of perf,
never got it to go?

I also had a MKII tonebender that worked great for a while,
one day it failed and I could never find out what was wrong with it?

The parallel universe is a pretty cool box for sure!
I gave mine away to the "comets on fire" echoplex player "Noel"..

[aron]

Dr. Q. Forget it, I will buy one!

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

tube driver (finally gave up and moved on to firefly), anything CMOS (not even kidding), frobnicator (doing something weird recently), BSIABII (oscillating like all hell, started about a week ago...)

i hate leaving a project behind, so i smash my head against it for hours. bad policy.

[cab42]

The Phuncgnosis. Build it twice, with different layouts. Both sounds more like phuncstortions than the sound sample
on CircuitSnippets.

I also build R.G.'s q&d oscillator using a layout I found on the internet, WITHOUT checking it against the schematic. Well, you learn most from your mistakes 

regards

Carsten

[Steben]

It's really simple:

All PCB-based FX worked like charm. Only the Phase45 needed part swapping to use J201's.
There are two non-PCB FX I never got to work:

1. First tryout Fuzz '69 pedal ago in 1998 I guess I was young, unexperienced to the bone and wanted too early a 4-knobber... Of course it was a small error but I couldn't see it then. Could have been anything as dumb as not connecting the battery  .

2. Mosrite Fuzzrite: somehow I never managed to get one of those. As simple as it is, as silent it was.

[Branimir]

Heh, bigmuff, would you believe it! yesterday i picked up my old almost populated board (2 years since i soldered it), connected and got gating and stuff... so i looked at the pinouts and noticed that all 4 transistors were put backwards. Okay, i took them out, rotated their orinetation, soldered them back, plugged my guitar and then... it works, but at a very very low volume. I started (of course ) poking the damn thing with my finger i noticed that when i press on a certain transistor, i get efect function normally.. Okay, maybe a bad joint, so i resoldered everything, just in case. Nothin' happend, i don't feel like poking no more, i'm missing something utterly stupid here effect is bearly audible, but i can hear the distortion change with the pot, tone shaping too, even the volume pot changes volume, from silence till barely audible.

I hope i'll get this thing working today, i even thought etching an another board, to start over... eh...

Geez i got 2 Sansamp GT2's working right away, and i can't get that simple 4 transistor buzz circuit to function properly...

Did i mentioned i tried to build MXR+? i got only volume boost, no distortion - how did i managed to screw up 10 component circuit? I have no clue.
It seem to me, i have no problems building an easyvibe or an all tube 50w Soldano type amp, but when it comes to distortion pedals - i'm jinxed!

[MartyMart]

I seem to do quite well, even had most things work right off !
I have a P90 that just wont work, pulses and "hisses" thats about all... its my "vero" layout
Shakka Tube, lots of problems .. it "works" but quietly and with no change
in OD, but I do have a 12v ac adaptor now ...........
FY-2 "died" on me and was re-built twice !! just WONT work now !
The rest ( 15 or so ) are "workers" that i didn't like, so they have jacks etc removed first
then "parts" bit by bit, so everything is recycled in the end

Marty.

[Toney]

 
Garage Fuzz.
Simple as all hell. Waited for my metal can 2222s.
Built it twice, just wont fire.

[MartyMart]

Garage Fuzz.
Simple as all hell. Waited for my metal can 2222s.
Built it twice, just wont fire.

I built mine from Andy's vero layout, Q2 looks reversed .... did you try that ?
I dont think it should have "collector" to ground ?
MM.

[Toney]

 Damn.... Thanks, Marty.
Yeah, I did build it from that layout.
Read upon it and noticed some people were having some trouble with it. Apparently very transistor specific -had to be 2222s....I assumed it was the "transistor acting as a negistor" thing which frankly I didn't "get" , reached frustration ceiling and moved on.....
Good call, I'll have another look at that one tomorrow.

[Nasse]

LM380 amps, two of them. Just from application note, less components than fingers in a hand. I double-triple-quadruple checked it but could not get it working. I found the old circuit boards last summer, maybe I´ll try again some day. Or maybe life is too short for that...

[Zero the hero]

Mutron micro V from Pisotones: I built it twice but I always got the same problem, a terrific loud high frequency sound coming form the speaker!
The ringfrobnicator comes second, then the EH black finger.