Knocking Down the To Do List

I have a Windows notepad documenting all my effects pedal builds since day one. I put the name of the circuit built, the date it was built and alongside them I put anything that needs to be checked, fixed, adjusted, troubleshot, etc. I also add an asterisk for pedals that still need an enclosure. Some of my pedals, including the LPB-1 clone, which was my second build, still to this day needed attention. So, I decided I would start knocking things off the list of repairs and adjustments that I needed to do.

The LPB-1 clone used an old A100k pot that worked just fine, until I closed up the build and let it sit. Afterwards, every time an ant would sneeze within a 500km radius when the pedal was on it would crackle. So I decided it was time to clean the pot, so I cleaned it with rubbing alcohol. That fixed it, for now. Should any issues arise from having used rubbing alcohol I'll just replace the pot entirely.

Next I moved on to my 8-bit fuzz, which is a Shoe Pixel clone, and that too needed a pot cleaning. After doing so I managed to clean up 90% of the pot, but it's still crusty and crackly on the furthest top range. That's good enough for now, but this pot will most likely be replaced in the future, should it become more problematic.

Finally I decided to tackle the oscillation of my Rat clone, Rata Blanca. This pedal had been nothing but trouble since I built it, back in March of 2022. I socketed the op-amp to test what sounded best, and also to put in a LM308, should I find one for less than the price of a whole Klon Centaur. For now it's an OP07 Rat and it sounds ok, it just loves to squeal though. I thought I had tested everything and it really was driving me insane, so I packed it away for a few months. When I hooked it up to fix it the oscillation was gone, except in bypass, furthering my feeling of being driven insane. So I decided to tackle the issue of the bypass oscillation by grounding the footswitch and attaching the input to ground when bypassed. This cured the bypass oscillation, but then I noticed the oscillation was back when the pedal was turned on, but it went away if I touched the enclosure. Simple! Ground the enclosure! So I did, and that cured that. Rata Blanca is now finished.

I still have some things to figure out and fix, but I've knocked all the 2020 and 2021 builds off my repairs list. I only have four repairs necessary for my 2022 list, considering I built fourteen pedals last year that's not too bad. The biggest problematic circuits still remain the Blues Driver clone and this year's tremolo circuit, the latter of which actually scored bit of success. It was confirmed the layout I used had an error in it that I'm just not smart enough to have recognized, and the volume issue was rectified in full. However, now the tremolo is an overdrive tremolo. I'll keep plowing through and see what fixes it though.