Box66 won't work

[Zaigah]

Hello everyone, I just finished subscribing to the forum so I am a new member :]
My name is Lorenzo and I live in northern Italy, I'm 33 and I've always liked music since I was a kid, I play guitar, banjo and drums.

I just finished building the Box66 fuzz kit but it doesn't work at all.
No guitar sound bypassed and a VERY quiet sound plus hiss or hum when ingaged (ore the other way around for bypass/ingaged); LED doesn't turn on.
I'm using a brand new 9v battery.

I checked the wirings something like 15 times I guess and still can't find where's the fault.

I guess it could be some faulty component.

waiting for some of your precious advices!!
thanks a bunch everyone!
Bless

 

[swelchy]

are you sure you used the correct pinout for your transistors?

 

[swelchy]

I don't see anything immediately out of place... But I see your using stereo jacks..... I would verify you have the correct lugs soldered there....

 

[Zaigah]

I don't see anything immediately out of place... But I see your using stereo jacks..... I would verify you have the correct lugs soldered there....

The Jacks are soldered correctly, I have to check again the pinouts on the trannys

 

[Zaigah]

So these are the pinouts of the transistors:
Emitter - White;
Base - Black;
Collector - Yellow

 

[Harry Klippton]

Some of your solder joints look a little cold, especially on the potentiometer connections to the board. Try reflowing them

 

[Erik S]

Your jack connections look right to me. Bad solder joints are always a possibility.

I wonder about that 1044 charge pump IC. I think the ones I’ve had usually had some part numbers printed on them, and yours looks blank. Doesn’t mean it’s bad, but could be something to check if you have a meter.

 

[Fuzzonaut]

And to add my 2 cents:
if the jacks are wired correctly and you don't get a clean/bypass signal, something is up with the foot switch.

Try to re-flow pin 8 of the foot switch (maybe also others) and the connection from the foot switch board to the out jack might use some solder too (on the board side).

 

[Zaigah]

Your jack connections look right to me. Bad solder joints are always a possibility.

I wonder about that 1044 charge pump IC. I think the ones I’ve had usually had some part numbers printed on them, and yours looks blank. Doesn’t mean it’s bad, but could be something to check if you have a meter.

Hi Erik, the the charge pump is labeled, the pic just doesn't show it.
How can I check it if it's working properly?
Not gonna lie, I know what I'm doing about half the time when building kits, just following istructions...
Thanks!

 

[Zaigah]

And to add my 2 cents:
if the jacks are wired correctly and you don't get a clean/bypass signal, something is up with the foot switch.

Try to re-flow pin 8 of the foot switch (maybe also others) and the connection from the foot switch board to the out jack might use some solder too (on the board side).

Hey Fuzzonaut,
I just resoldered the connections that looked suspicious but the pedal is still not working.
How can I check if the switch is faulty?
Thanks!

 

[Mcknib]

Do you get - 9v on pin 5 of the charge pump

What transistors are you using we can't see the type, some AC transistors are npn

As already mentioned there are some solder joints that look like they lack solder the switch outer connections, level pot lugs 2 and 3, fuzz pot 2, out jack tip wire on the 3PDT pcb

Perhaps post an image of the solder side of the main pcb

 

[Erik S]

@Fuzzonaut pointed out the best next step I think: When your pedal is in bypass, the only things in the audio path of the circuit are the two jacks and the 3pdt stomp switch.

If you’re getting no sound in bypass, there is something wrong with one of those. Correct that issue, get sound out in bypass, then determine if you also have other issues.

If you have a meter with a continuity or beep mode, you can start from the tip connections of your jacks. In bypass they should have continuity from one to the other. If each jack tip has continuity to the switch, but still no sound, your problem is the switch or the switch board.

 

[Zaigah]

@Fuzzonaut pointed out the best next step I think: When your pedal is in bypass, the only things in the audio path of the circuit are the two jacks and the 3pdt stomp switch.

If you’re getting no sound in bypass, there is something wrong with one of those. Correct that issue, get sound out in bypass, then determine if you also have other issues.

If you have a meter with a continuity or beep mode, you can start from the tip connections of your jacks. In bypass they should have continuity from one to the other. If each jack tip has continuity to the switch, but still no sound, your problem is the switch or the switch board.

Measured the continuity between each jack pin and also the 3dpt switch (from middle row to top/bottom row) but they are all good.
Out of curiosity, could a faulty pot or led be cause of this?
thanks

 

[Stickman393]

Hey brother, welcome!

Looking at your pedal's jacks: those things have got what, six solder terminals on them?

If thats the case, I would suspect that you are using sitched stereo jacks there. Basically: with nothing plugged in, you have two terminals each for tip, ring, and sleeve. As soon as a cable is plugged in, though, the connections between each pair is severed. Only one terminal makes contact with the plug: the second terminal does not.

This style of plug is very useful for certain applications (say, when one wants to insert an expression pedal somewhere in the circuit), but they require special attention when not using their switching functionality. One could *very* easily accidently solder to the "switched" terminal that doesn't actually make contact with the plug.

I would re-examine those plugs and make sure that you're on the right terminals. Here's a photo to help visualize what is happening:



In this drawing, we see a side-profile of a jack with a switched tip and a switched ring. Once the plug is inserted, terminal 2 makes contact with the ring of the plug, but is physically displaced and bent "up", which breaks the "normally closed" connection between terminal 2 and terminal 4.

Same deal with terminal 3: that connects to the top of the plug, but it is bent "down" when a plug is inserted which breaks the connection to terminal 5.

It's a pretty simple little normally-closed switching system that just uses spring force to work. It would be quite easy, however, to accidently solder to terminal 4 or 5 though. If one did that, no signal could pass from the cable to the rest of the circuit.

Given that you hear a buzz when the pedal is engaged, I'd specifically look at your input jack. It may help to hook a cable up to the jack and use a meter to ohm out what terminals the tip, ring, and sleeve connect to when inserted.

Best of luck!

 

[Erik S]

Measured the continuity between each jack pin and also the 3dpt switch (from middle row to top/bottom row) but they are all good.
Out of curiosity, could a faulty pot or led be cause of this?
thanks

In bypass nothing on the board is in the circuit. Don’t worry about pots and leds yet.

Those switched stereo jacks are a common source of errors like @Stickman393 says. From the pictures it looked like you soldered to the right terminals, but here’s a way to verify:

Plug two patch cables in, and instead of measuring continuity from your soldered terminals, measure from tip of one cable to tip of the other at the free ends.

If those are connected in bypass and you still get no sound there’s something wrong with your guitar, amp, or another cable in your chain.

 

[Robert]

Plug two patch cables in, and instead of measuring continuity from your soldered terminals, measure from tip of one cable to tip of the other at the free ends.

Adding to this, if you DO measure continuity between the two patch cables make sure you DON'T have continuity between either cable and ground.

If the 3PDT is internally damaged it could be dumping your signal to ground.

 

[Fuzzonaut]

Measured the continuity between each jack pin and also the 3dpt switch (from middle row to top/bottom row) but they are all good.
Out of curiosity, could a faulty pot or led be cause of this?
thanks

What they said, those jacks are tricky and might fool you into thinking they are wired correctly.

As @Erik S pointed out, you'd need to check continuity with cables inserted, from cable tip to foot switch, on both sides (in and out).
Once that is fine and still no bypass signal, it's lost in the foot switch.
(My bet is you loose the signal already at the input jack and nothing reaches the foot switch.)

 

[Stickman393]

Taking a closer look here:

If your jacks are wired the way I think they're wired, I believe you are connected to the sleeve and ring connections.

On a TS cable, that will shunt your signal to ground when you plug in.

Here's a drawing from switchcraft:




Looks to me like your sleeve is correct, but the signal is two terminals counter-clockwise from the sleeve, which would land you on "ring". You'll want to land on "tip".

That being said...and I don't recommend looking into this until you've got the signal problem fixed...theres one more thing that I noticed with your build.

You're using a 9V battery in this build. The way you have this wired at the moment, the circuit will always be energized when a 9V battery is installed.

When I say "energized", I mean that current will flow through the circuit. Which means that even when you unplug your guitar cables your battery will continue to drain.

These are pretty low draw circuits, so you'll probably get at a few days before the battery goes kaput. But back in the days when 9volts were more common in pedals, builders would use a stereo input jack to make and break the power supply to the circuit.

Typically this would be done on "ground": Battery "ground" would go to ring, circuit "ground" goes to the sleeve. This is the same way folks do it for guitars with active pickups: your cable's sleeve shorts the ring to sleeve connections when you plug in. Unplugging is like hitting an "off" switch, which will make your battery last *much* longer.

Since this is a positive ground circuit, that means you would need to de-solder your red wire from the battery clip to the board and re-route it to the "ring" terminal on your input jack. Nothing else should be required.

 

[Zaigah]

First of all I just wanted to thank everyone for the support, you are helping me a lot and I'm also learning quite a bit!

So, just to taking something of the equation, I just replaced the jacks with some standard 1/4" mono input jacks which I am familiar with.
This way I'm sure they are wired correctly.

I might also try to replace the 3dpt switch although it looks fine "continuity-wise".

 

[Coda]

Taking a closer look here:

If your jacks are wired the way I think they're wired, I believe you are connected to the sleeve and ring connections.

On a TS cable, that will shunt your signal to ground when you plug in.

Here's a drawing from switchcraft:

View attachment 80703


Looks to me like your sleeve is correct, but the signal is two terminals counter-clockwise from the sleeve, which would land you on "ring". You'll want to land on "tip".

That being said...and I don't recommend looking into this until you've got the signal problem fixed...theres one more thing that I noticed with your build.

You're using a 9V battery in this build. The way you have this wired at the moment, the circuit will always be energized when a 9V battery is installed.

When I say "energized", I mean that current will flow through the circuit. Which means that even when you unplug your guitar cables your battery will continue to drain.

These are pretty low draw circuits, so you'll probably get at a few days before the battery goes kaput. But back in the days when 9volts were more common in pedals, builders would use a stereo input jack to make and break the power supply to the circuit.

Typically this would be done on "ground": Battery "ground" would go to ring, circuit "ground" goes to the sleeve. This is the same way folks do it for guitars with active pickups: your cable's sleeve shorts the ring to sleeve connections when you plug in. Unplugging is like hitting an "off" switch, which will make your battery last *much* longer.

Since this is a positive ground circuit, that means you would need to de-solder your red wire from the battery clip to the board and re-route it to the "ring" terminal on your input jack. Nothing else should be required.

Beat me to it…