Black Eye turning off

[Twrog]

Hi there
I'm having a slight problem with the Black Eye I just finished. It sounds great, but after about a minute it shuts off. The led's still work and there's power going to the tubes, but no signal passes. Wondering if anyone else has experienced this? I've checked every part and can't find a problem. The voltages do seem off, but I don't know what they should be. V2 has 240v on pin 5, V1 has 170v on pin 5. I have made sure the power supply is correct and tried at both 9 and 12v with the correct mA. If anybody would have the correct measurements or an idea as to what could cause the shut off that would be great.
BR
Ben

 

[vigilante398]

Can we see pictures of your build? Also, is this something that happened once and the pedal won't work again, or does it happen every time, i.e. the sound cuts off after a minute and if you unplug it and let it cool down it comes back for another minute before dying again?

 

[Twrog]

It's something that happens each time. Works perfectly, then dies. Checking this morning it's switching off faster. Probably after 20 seconds.

 

[Twrog]

Ok, embarrassing as it is to admit I just realised that one of my 1uf electrolytics is actually 10uf . I'll put that in the idiot box I think. Just goes to show how blind overconfidence can make you .

 

[Twrog]

Ok scrap that. Just changed that cap and it's doing the same thing . One thing I just noticed is that it isn't completely dead. With gain and vol up full I can hear it's passing signal.

 

[vigilante398]

The only time I've experienced something like that was when there was a cold solder joint that was just good enough to pass signal when the board was cold, and as soon as it heated up the joint failed. That one took about 10 minutes to fail though, but it was consistent that it would work for 10 minutes every time I let it cool down.

I can't see the bottom of your board, but if it's consistently working for a little bit every time you plug it in, and you've ruled out a power supply issue, checking solder joints would be a good place to start.

 

[Twrog]

I couldn't see anything obviously cold, but I reflowed every joint and lo and behold it worked.......for five minutes! I thought well the only thing left is the foot switch, so I changed that and it's been perfect going on two hours now and sounds amazing! It's the last thing I expected to work, but it seems to have done the job .

 

[vigilante398]

Well it sucks you had to do that, but I'm glad you found something that fixed it! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Black Eye is my favorite dirt pedal in the world.

 

[Twrog]

Oh I love it too! It's such a great rock machine it's untrue. I don't consider myself a high gain guy, but this is just plain addictive!