Bigger Muffin Fuzz issues - some fixed some remain

[Euphoric Guitars]

Greetings,

I just finished this Bigger Muffin Fuzz, it sounds pretty good when its turned on but there are a couple problems listed below I would like some help troubleshooting please.

1. When I plugged this in the LED is on dim right away, turning the foot switch on increased the brightness of the LED. During bypass LED now appears to always be on, or it's intensity fluctuates in relation to the crack and pop noise listed in 3.

2. Very hard pop click sound when turning on and off the foot switch.

3. This circuit makes click, pop, noises similar to a dirty pot. In bypass these are very present and it always sounds like someone is turning a dirty pot. Clicks and pops are still present when the circuit is switched on but are drown out by the fuzz signal.

Your help please,

Thanks Eric

 

[zgrav]

do you have anything under the pot that goes above the PCB to separate the two? if not, put a small piece of cardboard or something like that in place. if it still does not work after that, please post a picture of the other side of the PCB (including with the pot bent up out of the way)

 

[Euphoric Guitars]

do you have anything under the pot that goes above the PCB to separate the two? if not, put a small piece of cardboard or something like that in place. if it still does not work after that, please post a picture of the other side of the PCB (including with the pot bent up out of the way)

Hey zgrav,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I wrapped that Pot with the tape used to wrap pick up coils.

 

[Euphoric Guitars]

Doing some research of my own I discovered, doing a better job cleaning with 99% IPA and a brush, along with scratching to remove " invisible solder bridges" solved most of the dirty noise, and strange LED behaviours.

A couple problems I'm still trying to solve:

1. The LED comes on very dimly when there is power in the circuit and the FX is disengaged, is that normal or tolerable? ( LED lights up properly when the FX is engaged)

2. Still a very loud POP when you engage and disengage the FX circuit. Could that be the footswitch? Grounding? (I have other homemade pedals some make the POP others don't... head scratcher)

 

[Nostradoomus]

2) Use a multimeter to determine if you have any DC Voltage on your output. If you do, your 10uf cap at C13 is leaky. Replace it with a film cap...you won’t find a 10uf film cap but if you can get a 1uf in there it will sound mostly the same. Any time a pedal has an electro cap on the output I immediately curse the gods and change it to film.

 

[Euphoric Guitars]

2) Use a multimeter to determine if you have any DC Voltage on your output. If you do, your 10uf cap at C13 is leaky. Replace it with a film cap...you won’t find a 10uf film cap but if you can get a 1uf in there it will sound mostly the same. Any time a pedal has an electro cap on the output I immediately curse the gods and change it to film.

Thanks for your fantastic incite. I'm a total noob and I'm not even sure if know how to take the measurement you listed about. See my picture attached. Please give more pointers if I'm not measuring DC voltage on my output.

I'm going to go ahead and order that film capacitor you mentioned for the benefit of troubleshooting.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Yeah that’s a bit high, you measured it well enough! If you have even a 100nf cap just put it in and see what happens.

 

[Euphoric Guitars]

Yeah that’s a bit high, you measured it well enough! If you have even a 100nf cap just put it in and see what happens.

Thanks for the response,

I'm putting an order of parts together for another build and will include some extra film Caps to improve troubleshoot this pedal. I'll make another post in the future.

Cheers,

 

[Euphoric Guitars]

PROJECT UPDATE:
I started investigating this pedal again today. No more popping when it is turned on or off. When I read the Voltage drop form the ground to the output it starts around -0.8mv or -1.0mv and quickly drops off too 0.0mv. Does that sound like proper capacitor behaviour?

If this problem comes back I now have 0.1uf, 1uf, and a10uf Film capacitors. I will experiment with installing the films caps in the place of the electrolytic cap at C13. The 10uf Film capacitor is pretty chunky and rated for 50V likely may not fit.

NEW QUESTIONS:
Primarily I play bass guitar and I was hoping this Bigger Muffin Fuzz would sound good with bass. Sadly the low end is savagely cut out when I engage this Bigger Muffin Fuzz. Is there anything you can change about a circuit to maintain rich low end when engaging a fuzz pedal? Does anyone know a Pedal PCB Fuzz clone that sounds fantastic with bass guitar? I'm hoping to find that great fuzz bass sound without cutting off the low end.

Thanks
Eric

 

[kurtis1]

NEW QUESTIONS:
Primarily I play bass guitar and I was hoping this Bigger Muffin Fuzz would sound good with bass. Sadly the low end is savagely cut out when I engage this Bigger Muffin Fuzz. Is there anything you can change about a circuit to maintain rich low end when engaging a fuzz pedal? Does anyone know a Pedal PCB Fuzz clone that sounds fantastic with bass guitar? I'm hoping to find that great fuzz bass sound without cutting off the low end.

Thanks
Eric

Bass guitar tends to sound best when you mix some of the dry signal into the wet signal. That way you retain your low end tone, but you also get that cool fuzz sound. It's probably fairly simple to install a potentiometer that does this, but I'm personally not knowledgeable enough to tell you exactly how to go about doing it.

 

[Euphoric Guitars]

Bass guitar tends to sound best when you mix some of the dry signal into the wet signal. That way you retain your low end tone, but you also get that cool fuzz sound. It's probably fairly simple to install a potentiometer that does this, but I'm personally not knowledgeable enough to tell you exactly how to go about doing it.

That is a really good idea, adding a blend knob to mix some of the low end, unaffected guitar signal back in.