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

 

[Stickman393]

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".

I recommend using the jacks you have, simply because you'll need a stereo jack on the input.

That's because of the battery situation I referred to earlier. The way it's wired right now you'll have to change the battery every few days.

The circuit doesn't have an "off" switch as is, "bypass" only re-routes your guitar signal. You wouldn't want the the footswitch to off power to the circuit anyways...that would introduce all kinds of pops and noise every time you stepped on it.

If you want a way to turn the pedal "off" by unplugging your instrument cable, wire the input jack like this:

I'd also recommend simply cleaning up the wiring to the footswitch a little bit. A faulty footswitch can short your signal to ground, but *if* that was the case I would expect it to feel *mechanically* strange as well.

These things operate a little ike a clicking ball point pen: springs and tabs derermine what position the little switching levers come to rest at. In order for a short to ground to occur in a switch, something would have to go very wrong with the mechanism inside, which would likely make the switch quite difficult to actuate.

That said, stranger things have happened.

Still: we have identified one thing that is incorrect in your build: the green wires need to be moved one terminal over to the "T" or "Tip" terminal.

Best to do one thing at a time: changing too many things at once opens the door to a mistake being made in step 2 that makes it seem like the thing that fixed the problem in step 1 didn't actually fix the problem.

Which is probably the absolute worst sentence I've ever written. Woof. Anywho.

 

[Zaigah]

Hello everyone.
So, replacing the 3dpt switch has solved the problem!
the circuit is now working and it sounds pretty damn good too without popping noise from the switch or hiss/hum.
I wired it like this:

BUT, the led is still not working....damn...
Any idea Of what the cause might be?
thanks

 

[Stickman393]

Hello everyone.
So, replacing the 3dpt switch has solved the problem!
the circuit is now working and it sounds pretty damn good too without popping noise from the switch or hiss/hum.
I wired it like this:

BUT, the led is still not working....damn...
Any idea Of what the cause might be?
thanks

Good to hear!

Check your LED polarity. It won't light up if it's wired backwards. The short lead is the cathode and needs to go to your negative voltage the long lead is the anode and needs to go to ground (which, in this circuit, is positive).