SOLVED A Breadboarder Needs Help - Dist 250

BuddytheReow

Breadboard Baker
Hey guys,

I hate to ask your help, but I've been trying for a few days to get a simple Non-inverting opamp to work. This is the Distortion 250 without diode clipping. I used to build this one in my sleep 6 months ago, but now nothing. I guess I've been too busy soldering and designing transistor circuits for Chuck's contest, LOL. Anyway, I've breadboarded it and taken it apart at least 4 times now and for the life of me I can't get it to work . I either get no signal, a very "starved" sound, or unity gain. The gain knob doesn't work. Here is a picture of the breadboard. I hope you all can see it clearly. I do have signal going into the opamp so that part's good. Here's also the schematic. Please read to the end. There are lots of pictures.

1642711947936.png

The top part is the voltage divider and R5. All 1M (I checked before installing and they are within tolerance). The weird part is when I check the voltage right at the divider I get about 2.5 volts. Seem kind of odd, right?

The bottom left is the input section. A 10n cap into a 1k resistor with a 1m resistor going to ground. The red jumper then goes into the non-inverting opamp (pin 3).

The bottom middle is the feedback loop. Jumpered from the - Input to a 1m resistor and then going to the output with the black jumper. To complete the feedback loop I've got a 47n cap to the gain pot (1m) on lugs 2 and 3. Lug 3 goes to the 4.7k resistor. I know the order is backwards but I don't think that makes a difference?

The output goes to a 1u electro cap and then to my output signal.
1642711994886.png




At first I thought it was the breadboard and checked continutity on all the rows/columns (a real pain). Then I built this again on a different breadboard with no luck. Here are my IC voltages:

1 0
2 1.92
3 1.11
4 0
5 0
6 1.97
7 9
8 0

1642712118351.png

As you can see I have it chip powered correctly (pin 7 is 9v and pin 4 is 0). I am wondering about the other voltages here.
 
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Inspired by this this thread, I breadboarded a Ross Distortion (black box values), using the PPCB schematic, and a 741 because I forgot. Worked great. Decided to swap out for the 4558 and reset what needed to be reset and…nothing. Tore it part and started over…still nothing. Hilarious.
just replaced the the lm741 with a tl071 souns good went with 1n914s with the diodes and a few other mods that im waiting to confirm if i like or not
 
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so far as i said with the aforementioned mods already stated i have:
ive changed the 1m vref resistors to 470k to even out the bias
r2 has been changed to 180k
r1 has been changed to 12k
gain is b1m kept as original in schematics not alot of room anywhere else at least that ive found
vol is b10k more sweep
going to be messing with some caps to be adding bass tomorrow will let you know where i go with that!
 
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It does. I tried a few different makes of 4558 too. I’m gonna start over again tomorrow. I feel like I don’t have a choice but to make it work…

I started over and it works great. No idea what the issue is, as my mulligan is nearly identical to the original. I left the second half of the 4558 alone. I tried a few of the common mods, and none of them do too much for me. I like fuzz. A basic, foundation OD/Distortion tone for me is a bit fuzzy. This circuit just makes me want to play classic rock riffs.

I wonder what will happen if I try and use the rest of the op-amp…
 
Lots to look into. Either way, I'll at least learn a lot about tone stacks. Another thing I've noticed: the standard Ross Distortion (Black Box) schematic shows three Si diodes for clipping. It seems, however, that on the original circuits, the third diode was for reverse voltage protection, and not for clipping; if you look at a gut shot of an original, the third diode is no where near the two clipping diodes...
 
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Lots to look into. Either way, I'll at least learn a lot about tone stacks. Another thing I've noticed: the standard Ross Distortion (Black Box) schematic shows three Si diodes for clipping. It seems, however, that on the original circuits, the third diode was for reverse voltage protection, and not for clipping; if you look at a gut shot of an original, the third diode is no where near the two clipping diodes...
 
Also the Mark Hammer SWTC

SWTC.gif
 
I've tried many times to use the unused triode of a dual triode op-amp to make coffee but to no avail. I think I need to use more NFB on the neural flux cortex.

Either that or use a French press.
 
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