BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
You've taken the time to download the schematic, read it, populate the breadboard the best way you think it should be, hook it up to your power supply and In/Out jacks, plug in your guitar and amp, turn everything on and....nothing. No sound, no effect, or the sound doesn't like it should based on all those youtube videos you've been looking at. Damn!
This will happen more often than you think with a breadboard. Don't worry. Here are some helpful tips and the steps that I personally take to troubleshoot a recent build.
Check your pots, if any
I'm sure there are many others besides myself that troubleshooted for a long ass time only to realize that my volume pot was turned all the way down!! As a "check" I make sure all my pots are turned up to max before firing off for the first time.
Make a 'shocking' discovery
I usually start here with the power and making sure that all directly powered components have power going into them. Without even looking at biasing, etc. I take my multimeter out and test power to the specific pins/leads that need it directly. Set your DMM to 20v, black probe to ground, and the red probe to the pin/lead you want to test. If you've got 0v, something's not right and you'll need to retrace your steps here to see that everything is linked up.
If your board is more complex than a simple LPB1 booster, you've probably utilized both sides of the power rails. Did you make sure that you jumpered power to both sides of the board? Is red jumpered to red and blue jumpered to blue? While this may seem obvious and not worth discussing here, I've spent a lot of time laying out all my components only to find that I never put in a jumper cable from red (power) to the power section of my circuit block!
Also, is everything grounded that should be grounded? Perhaps there's a missing jumper cable here. Double check.
Did you stick it in real good?
Double check to make sure all the components have been placed securely into the breadboard. You don't really need to shove everything real hard, but a simple nudge with the tip of your finger to make sure components don't bounce.
Components Not Lining Up
Take the time to trace the schematic against your breadboard. If the schematic calls for a capacitor going into a resistor for the next stage, are the "output" of the capacitor and the "input" of the resistor hooked up to the same row and sharing a common connection? You may find that you accidentally put that resistor into the row in front or behind the capacitor, which severs the signal and creates an open loop.
Jumpers
Because of the general nature of a breadboard, you most like have to use a bunch of jumper cables. Are you missing any cables? Are all circuit blocks connected in the order they should be? Check to make sure the lugs of you potentiometers are wired correctly, too.
Give it a good probing!
Depending on the complexity of the circuit, you may need to whip out an audio probe and test the different circuit blocks. You've got nothing coming out of the initial booster stage? Well, double check that everything's wired up correctly (power and guitar/bass signal). If everything looks like it's wired correctly, check the main component (transistor, IC, etc) in the circuit block to see it's got power and if the in and out signal works. You've either got a bad component or you need to take out the whole block and rewire it a different way. I've had to rewire a section a few times even though I was pretty confident that it was wired up correctly. Sometimes using a jumper to separate certain components can make a difference.
If you've narrowed down the problem area to a specific area you may have problems with the breadboard itself. Over time the connections underneath the plastic shell wear out. This can result in a "dead" hole or row. See if you can move the leads one row over in either direction. If you now have signal going through, there's your answer.
Does it go in and out the way it should?
Make sure your input from your guitar/bass is actually hooked up to the correct jack. Same goes true for the output section into your amp. I've made this mistake a few times myself so you're not alone.
Anybody else have good troubleshooting tips for breadboarding? Please share below!
BuddyTheReow
This will happen more often than you think with a breadboard. Don't worry. Here are some helpful tips and the steps that I personally take to troubleshoot a recent build.
Check your pots, if any
I'm sure there are many others besides myself that troubleshooted for a long ass time only to realize that my volume pot was turned all the way down!! As a "check" I make sure all my pots are turned up to max before firing off for the first time.
Make a 'shocking' discovery
I usually start here with the power and making sure that all directly powered components have power going into them. Without even looking at biasing, etc. I take my multimeter out and test power to the specific pins/leads that need it directly. Set your DMM to 20v, black probe to ground, and the red probe to the pin/lead you want to test. If you've got 0v, something's not right and you'll need to retrace your steps here to see that everything is linked up.
If your board is more complex than a simple LPB1 booster, you've probably utilized both sides of the power rails. Did you make sure that you jumpered power to both sides of the board? Is red jumpered to red and blue jumpered to blue? While this may seem obvious and not worth discussing here, I've spent a lot of time laying out all my components only to find that I never put in a jumper cable from red (power) to the power section of my circuit block!
Also, is everything grounded that should be grounded? Perhaps there's a missing jumper cable here. Double check.
Did you stick it in real good?
Double check to make sure all the components have been placed securely into the breadboard. You don't really need to shove everything real hard, but a simple nudge with the tip of your finger to make sure components don't bounce.
Components Not Lining Up
Take the time to trace the schematic against your breadboard. If the schematic calls for a capacitor going into a resistor for the next stage, are the "output" of the capacitor and the "input" of the resistor hooked up to the same row and sharing a common connection? You may find that you accidentally put that resistor into the row in front or behind the capacitor, which severs the signal and creates an open loop.
Jumpers
Because of the general nature of a breadboard, you most like have to use a bunch of jumper cables. Are you missing any cables? Are all circuit blocks connected in the order they should be? Check to make sure the lugs of you potentiometers are wired correctly, too.
Give it a good probing!
Depending on the complexity of the circuit, you may need to whip out an audio probe and test the different circuit blocks. You've got nothing coming out of the initial booster stage? Well, double check that everything's wired up correctly (power and guitar/bass signal). If everything looks like it's wired correctly, check the main component (transistor, IC, etc) in the circuit block to see it's got power and if the in and out signal works. You've either got a bad component or you need to take out the whole block and rewire it a different way. I've had to rewire a section a few times even though I was pretty confident that it was wired up correctly. Sometimes using a jumper to separate certain components can make a difference.
If you've narrowed down the problem area to a specific area you may have problems with the breadboard itself. Over time the connections underneath the plastic shell wear out. This can result in a "dead" hole or row. See if you can move the leads one row over in either direction. If you now have signal going through, there's your answer.
Does it go in and out the way it should?
Make sure your input from your guitar/bass is actually hooked up to the correct jack. Same goes true for the output section into your amp. I've made this mistake a few times myself so you're not alone.
Anybody else have good troubleshooting tips for breadboarding? Please share below!
BuddyTheReow
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