Apart from the Univox Unicomp, every build this year had been functional, for better or worse. Worse being the case of the Bazz Fuss rebuild. I check pedal layout sites everyday, throughout the day looking for ideas on what to build next. Even though I've already built my 100th circuit I still want to keep building. I really should stop, but in my current situation I have to find something to keep my mind occupied as much as I possibly can. Months ago a layout popped up that caught my attention, and as I do I downloaded the layout to get the stripboard cut and gather the parts. A few days later the layout was removed from the website and I was left holding the bag, or rather bags of parts.
I don't know why it was removed, it's really none of my business, but at that point I was already too invested to not go ahead with the build. For months I agonized, not from this build but with life in general. Paralleling that was a slight agony from having this build bagged up and ready, but not knowing if it would become a waste of parts or not. I can't look at a layout and say "Yep, that's viable!", or "No, that simply won't do. Move this here and that there and voila!". I consider myself the da Vinci of paint by numbers, when it comes to building circuits. I can solder the parts in place, but if the layout is wrong I can't begin to tell you why, or where. Luckily for me there is a community out there that want to verify layouts quickly, but for this particular one, that was impossible.
I recently decided it was time to stop agonizing and start solderizing. Does that work? I'll go with it anyway. Everything seemed to fight me, and I know from past experiences that if things are fighting me during a build, it's not going to turn out the way it should. There was even a brief thunderstorm during the build to kind of drive home the point that this just wasn't going to work. I persisted and finished the build. During the testing phase my assumptions were proven right. The output was very low and things didn't quite work the way they should. I looked the board over and realized I was a dope and didn't install one of the capacitors right. (Remember the da Vinci comment I made earlier?) The problem being if it works with the capacitor in wrong, fixing it wasn't going to completely cure this build's ailments.
After the capacitor situation was fixed I tested the circuit again and there was no change. With both the volume and gain maxed the output was below unity, with very little overdrive. I did my standard x-acto knife through the gaps and cleared away any unseen solder bridges, but that didn't help either. I sat there for a moment fiddling with the controls and when I moved the bass potentiometer it came roaring to life, but only briefly. Something about the bass control was messing up the output? It was then I noticed a rather large solder bridge that I somehow missed before, so I broke out the soldering iron and cleared it away. Afterwards the output was much better, and the gain control added a little more dirt. The problem now is even after clearing that solder bridge and getting more output volume, the bass potentiometer controls the gain somehow. *shrug*
The circuit functions, the pots do approximately what they're meant to do, and it gets somewhat close to what it's supposed to clone. I wouldn't call it a complete failure, because the issues I initially had were of my own doing. The bass control also controlling the gain isn't something I quite understand yet, and may never will. I'm hoping it's an easy fix, but I've been over the board a few times to make completely sure I placed everything where it should be. If it were a complete loss, like the Univox Unicomp that doesn't work at all, I would be far more frustrated. If that were the case I would have completely dismantled this build and distributed the parts to other projects that need them. Maybe at some point in the future I'll be able to explain what it is, and maybe even get some support on the build, but I won't be holding my breath. Mostly because holding your breath is a bad thing.
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