MichaelW
Well-known member
The Cleaver has been on my list of boost pedals to build, largely because I've been wanting a Keeley Katana for years but could never bring myself to drop the $200 for one.
It was a fairly quick and easy build, like the FDIC that I put together earlier this week. But when I buttoned everything up this morning before work I got power but no sound.
Last thing I was expecting, since I've had a good run of pedals that have all worked first time I fired them up.
My troubleshooting skills are most definitely not an area I've had a lot of opportunity to exercise so I was doing a lot of searching on this forum as well as a few others to even know where to start to look. So much great information to be had!
I was sitting in Zoom meetings today with the camera off, on mute, with a DMM and the pedal in front of me all morning trying to figure out what I did wrong, hahah.
I pulled the 3PDT out and hooked it up to different one with test leads all checked out but still no sound.
I was really stumped, wrote up a post for the Troubleshooting forum with pictures all ready to go to shout for HELP here, heh.
Right before I hit the "Post" button, I was thinking "you know, it's probably something REALLY dumb that you've overlooked...It's probably NOT a bad component, part, IC, transistor..."
So going back to the beginning, I took a look at the very first thing in the signal path, and sure enough.....dohhhh....I wired the input jack incorrectly.
I was using Neutrik Stereo Jacks (the only ones I had on hand that would fit in my 1590B build) and snipped the wrong tab and wired the ground wire to "ring" instead of sleeve....on both jacks....sigh. Unfortunately I had already snipped the tabs so I wasted a pair of jacks in the learning process, but once I wired it all up correctly with new jacks it fired right up.
What a sweet boost pedal! In the "boost" mode it can get into light overdrive territory and adds its own flavor pushing another gain pedal or amp front end.
I have yet to play around with it in my amp effects loop but I think it would work really well as a power amp boost as well.
Very glad I built it and a nice addition to my growing collection of boost pedals!
This is also my first 1590B build with top mounted jacks and I'm very happy my drilling wasn't too wonky and everything fit. (Thanks to the threads here on PedalPCB.com!) I absolutely love the smaller form factor box and looking forward to finding more PCB's that will fit into it. (Pauper, Mayahana and Greengage are now all on my wishlist
Definitely a hiccup in my expectations but also VERY satisfying to figure out what I did wrong and fix it!
It was a fairly quick and easy build, like the FDIC that I put together earlier this week. But when I buttoned everything up this morning before work I got power but no sound.
Last thing I was expecting, since I've had a good run of pedals that have all worked first time I fired them up. My troubleshooting skills are most definitely not an area I've had a lot of opportunity to exercise so I was doing a lot of searching on this forum as well as a few others to even know where to start to look. So much great information to be had!
I was sitting in Zoom meetings today with the camera off, on mute, with a DMM and the pedal in front of me all morning trying to figure out what I did wrong, hahah.
I pulled the 3PDT out and hooked it up to different one with test leads all checked out but still no sound.
I was really stumped, wrote up a post for the Troubleshooting forum with pictures all ready to go to shout for HELP here, heh.
Right before I hit the "Post" button, I was thinking "you know, it's probably something REALLY dumb that you've overlooked...It's probably NOT a bad component, part, IC, transistor..."
So going back to the beginning, I took a look at the very first thing in the signal path, and sure enough.....dohhhh....I wired the input jack incorrectly.
I was using Neutrik Stereo Jacks (the only ones I had on hand that would fit in my 1590B build) and snipped the wrong tab and wired the ground wire to "ring" instead of sleeve....on both jacks....sigh. Unfortunately I had already snipped the tabs so I wasted a pair of jacks in the learning process, but once I wired it all up correctly with new jacks it fired right up.
What a sweet boost pedal! In the "boost" mode it can get into light overdrive territory and adds its own flavor pushing another gain pedal or amp front end.
I have yet to play around with it in my amp effects loop but I think it would work really well as a power amp boost as well.
Very glad I built it and a nice addition to my growing collection of boost pedals!
This is also my first 1590B build with top mounted jacks and I'm very happy my drilling wasn't too wonky and everything fit. (Thanks to the threads here on PedalPCB.com!) I absolutely love the smaller form factor box and looking forward to finding more PCB's that will fit into it. (Pauper, Mayahana and Greengage are now all on my wishlist
Definitely a hiccup in my expectations but also VERY satisfying to figure out what I did wrong and fix it!
