Humbling Hubris Through Troubleshooting

Far be it from me to think I'm flawless, in fact I'm well aware that I'm faulty. The only problem is while one side of me is faulty, the other side is very much Basil Fawlty. I generally take quite a while to warm up to the idea that I actually know what I'm doing in any given field, however sometimes when things go wrong I dare to blame everything but myself. When it comes to guitar pedal circuits I'm still a newbie, even after six years and 160 builds, but when things go wrong, even though nothing seems to be wrong, well that's when my hubris tank runneth over.

Since this year's weather has been confused I've had very little chance to get outside and solder any of the pedal kits I've put together for the 2026 season. In the meantime I figured a few short bursts of soldering inside couldn't do my brain any damage. Could it? Well, perhaps it does, as I've found even the simplest of troubleshooting tasks to feel far beyond my grasp of comprehension. Firstly I set my sights on the Univox Uni-comp, as it was a super simple circuit, and if there was a will, there was a way. Sadly it took me entirely too long faffing about with AI trying to get it to work. In the end it works, but I have no clue if it's anywhere near what it should sound like.

After that I set my sights on a slightly modified Lovepedal JTM clone I had built, in hopes of creating an always on bluesy overdrive. I subbed in a 2N3904 for the transistor, two 1N60P clipping diodes, and I added a volume control. It doesn't really need a volume control, because at max it's only unity, but it's working now. It's a decent little overdrive, not to say the JTM wasn't already. I then looked into my EQD Zoar clone, which I was super excited about because they sound amazing. When mine was initially finished, however, it was dead as the Dodo. The main issue was the JFET input. I didn't have any suitable JFETs until recently, so I slapped one into the socket and was met with buzzy, farty goodness! Well, that's a start! A little twist of the trimpot and voila! It came to life and sounded as amazing as I had always hoped. This has been sitting in my Needs Troubleshooting box for two years, and all it took was two seconds to fix it. *face palm*

What may be worse is my Zendrive clone. It worked initially, but I was flustered because I thought the Voice control was bad. I downloaded schematics and went through the comments of the layout, finding more people saying the same thing. After hours of frustrated troubleshooting, reflowing every solder joint, and trying almost everything, without having tested the circuit, I decided I should just wire it up and test it. Well I'll be an idiot, it wasn't the Voice control, it was the Tone control! Ok, so what's wrong with the Tone control? More frustrating troubleshooting later and... I used a 330pf instead of a 3.3nf. Once I swapped that out, it works perfectly. THANK GOODNESS because Zendrives are GREAT!

Other circuits like both my 9v and my 18v Katana Boosts just needed biasing. My Eric Johnson Fuzz Face has a very high pitch oscillation squeal to it, but that may be because it needs a 9v battery, instead of the PSU I normally use, so I left it as it. Then my Colorsound Power Boost, I had written down the bass control didn't work, but apparently it does now? *shrug* I still have so many circuits left to go, like my Boss Blues Driver clone, which is apparently another notoriously finicky circuit. Again, I feel if there is a will, there is a way. Depending on how finicky the circuit wants to be, that may just be a way straight into the trash bin. Let's hope the outcome is a bit brighter side than that though. 

NE555 Projects on 5/5

After 160 circuits built I decided I really needed to start adding more utilitarian builds to my roster. Thanks to tagboard effects I found a voltage inverter and voltage doubler that use the exact same layout, but orient the parts slightly differently to achieve different goals. I've avoided building some pedal circuits because they need a negative nine volts, and I've avoided building others as they require an internal charge pump to double the voltage. I figure, why not build these little circuits and have external options for powering pedal circuits? Especially when it saves me having to buy a charge pump specific IC every single time I needed to achieve either of these voltage requirements.

Both of these circuits require the use of the old tried and true 555 timer chip. These projects sat in my box of 2026 kits for a few months, until I realized it would be neat to build them on May 5th. This wasn't purely my own idea, I have to admit. BigClive inspired me with his video posted today. That, couple with the fact that I had so much fun yesterday using my old RadioShack soldering iron, I figured why not!? Again, both layouts are identical in terms of board size, trace cuts, jumpers and most of the parts. The varying voltage output is all down to how the diodes and electrolytic caps are oriented within the circuit.

There isn't much more to say, if you've checked the layouts at tagboard's website you pretty much see everything you need to. Super simple, super low component count, and (hopefully as I've not tested them out yet) super useful. Now I can build circuits that require negative voltage and eighteen volts without having to worry about powering them properly. I mean, I could build these for each pedal that requires them, and in some cases I may. The main idea though is to have a power box with these options, so I don't need to mess with all that in the future. There are a few other 555 timer related circuits I plan to build, but those will come later. These were just super easy builds I felt deserved to be "born" on May 5th.

Using Archaic Technology!

Since my nephew turned one this year I wanted to build him a simple boost circuit for his birthday. As I've done in the past, for a few friends, I build the circuit on the actual day of their birth so they and the circuit share the same birthday. Typically it's just a simple LPB-1 or a treble boost, nothing too complicated as I'm simply building these mostly for non-musician friends as keepsakes. For little Erik I decided to build him a LPB-1. Maybe someday he'll want me to custom build him something a bit more complex. Heck, maybe by then I'll be building guitar amps too. Who knows!

The LPB-1 being as simple as it is, I didn't want to break out my soldering station and make a big mess, as today was a rainy day, making getting outside a fool's errand. Instead I dug through a little toolbox under my bed and pulled out an old RadioShack 15 watt soldering iron I had barely used before. I found it at the outlet years ago and figured it may come in handy someday. Little did either of us know it would be about ten years before it came in handy, but come in handy it did!

This thing takes forever to warm up, but once it's ready it put plenty of heat into the board and the component to make pretty decent joints. I can't say they're perfect, and sometimes the solder creeped through the hole and onto the actual component being soldered to the board below, but all in all this was a fairly good experience. The tip is conical, which I'm not really familiar with as I prefer a more angled, chisel type, like on my soldering station. Even so, I still have to say this little blast from the past did a decent job.

The joints are a little blobby, but they seem solid. I have to say building the circuit for my nephew, and using the old RadioShack soldering iron made this one of the more enjoyable builds I've done in a while. I probably wouldn't want to use it for anything wildly complex, or high component count, but at least now I know for smaller builds, or maybe even troubleshooting, modifying, or repairs this soldering iron is wholly capable. Now if I could find the chisel tip I like somewhere I think this soldering iron would get a lot more use than it currently is.