Volume drop when pedal on

[sasuke_kun12]

This is getting really annoying. I build an MXR Disto+ from tonepad. My first build went smoothly, but I'm having problems with my second build. Everything works fine but when the pedal is engaged, I get a HUGE volume drop. The distortion works fine, it's just the volume drop. I've double and triple checked the schem and my build, inspected the board and solder joints, replaced pots, rewired the 3PDT but still nothing!

Any ideas? I though it was a power issue but when I rewired the 3PDT, thats when I got some underwhelming results. I'm starting to think that I fried the IC

[Mark Hammer]

1) What value volume pot did you use?  50k-100k is recommended for maximum volume conservation.  Keep in mind the 10k resistor just ahead of the diodes acts in concert with the volume pot to form a combined voltage divider.  If the volume pot is 10k then it behaves like a 20k (10k + 10k) volume put turned down halfway.  If the volume pot is 50k, then it behaves likes a 60k (10k+50k) pot that can never be turned up more than 5/6 of the way.  And so on.

2) A lot of novice builders can create malfunctions in their pedals by the way they solder wires to the stompswitches.  Just for the heck of it, unsolder the wires from the circuit board to switch, and solder them directly to the lugs where the wires from the jacks go, so that there is a direct connection from jack to board to jack.  If that brings back the volume, then the issue is with the switch, and suggests you applied too much heat to it for too long.

[sasuke_kun12]

1. I used a 250k log pot for the volume control

2. I did that and no sound. So I wired it back up. When I put my fingers on the solder joints, presto! I have normal sound. I'm guessing I haven't grounded something or I have a bad trace?