Magnetron Delay Issue

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brightlight

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I built a Magnetron and was testing it a bit. It works 100% fine at all times when turned on, the issue is when it's off. After a few minutes of being off the signal fades out until it's gone completely. Turning the pedal on instantly fixes the problem for a few minutes and then it happens again. Any idea what these symptoms indicate?
 
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jimilee said:
Bypass audio comes in, across the switch and back out. Sounds like a bad solder joint.
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Thanks for the response, I'll start looking at them. So these symptoms could be from a bad joint even though I get sound on or off but in the off position it happens after a few minutes? When the pedal is on it doesn't happen at all Sorry for the naive question, I'm generally a terrible troubleshooter
 
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jimilee said:
I would start with lug 9 on the stomp.
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Ok so the gradual signal drop out in bypass has been solved. I reflowed all my foot switch joints and yes there was an iffy one that wasn't fully filled in (I'm using the PPCB breakout boards). Left it plugged in and turned off for over an hour and that problem has gone away.

I have a new problem now. I'm plugged it into the FX loop of my amp (50w Synergy head with a JCM 800 and Tone King Imperial modules). I noticed when hitting a hard note or chord the pedal does a kind of tremolo thing where the volume drops in an out at a set rate. Also when picking really lightly it's almost as if when you do that like of guitar volume knob thing to cut the initial transient of the note off and bring it up quickly to imitate a bowed instrument. Weird to explain.

Could I have a bad chip or transistor? And what exactly does the trim pot do? Should be be lowering this in case it's causing something to get hit with too much signal?

Edit: forgot to mention that the warbly/tremolo type thing is at its worst when the Level is set to either fully off or fully on, gets better towards the middle but only still pronounced. I'm also doing all this with the Rate and Depth completely off
 
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Sorry this one can get marked as solved, mods.

The TL;DR of it for any future inquirers:

Losing signal over time when bypassed was a bad joint in the foot switch that I reflowed and that fixed it.

The crazy warble/tremolo type issue was 100% solved by turning the internal trimpot only about 1/8th of a turn to the left of center. I also realized when I tried out my Dark Rift delay that the repeats were distorting badly in that pedal, which was fixed by setting my FX loop to Low mode instead of High. Too much signal all around.

Thanks for everyone's input!
 
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