SOLVED Crackling and popping noises from Parentheses Fuzz

[sdnorris]

Hello all,
I recently posted about this same pedal, but I'm making a new thread because I'm having a different issue with it. I recently got it fully assembled, but when the Distortion circuit is engaged the sound reduces in volume significantly, and crackles and pops. If I play a note hard enough, I'll get a sudden spike in the signal. The Boost circuit seems to be working okay, and signal gets through fine in bypass. I'm wondering whether there are any obvious places to start troubleshooting based on these symptoms, or if this issue is too vague to be diagnosed without further detail. Thanks in advance for any advice you might have!

Some pictures of the board (Note: Had to remove the J176 transistors for the moment to swap pins 2 and 3, so that's why they're sitting on the breadboard for now. Swapped them in for the PF5102s because I couldn't find any, but didn't realise until yesterday that the pinouts aren't the same. See my previous thread):


Video of the problem:

 

[sdnorris]

Hello, still struggling with this and not sure where to start with figuring out a fix. Any advice would be very greatly appreciated :')

 

[sdnorris]

Bumping this again because I'm still at a loss, should I be providing any other information?

 

[Nic]

How's the sound when it's working properly? Is it to your taste ? I ask this because there is a lot of socketed diodes and if you like the sound you could clip the leads a little and solder them in. Maybe start by wiggling them a little while playing.

I'm also not a fan of exposed wires at the bottom pads. You could post a pic of the back of your board?

Hard to see everything with those big resistors, no leads are touching ? You measured everything before putting them in ?

 

[chris.knudson]

Looks like you might have a solder bridge on the white wire going to the foot switch -- it's hard to tell from the picture, but it looks suspect. Also, I agree with Nic. You've got a lot of stuff socketed, and any one of those could be the problem. Also, you might want to try putting the transistors directly into the sockets instead of running jumper wires to the breadboard. That's one less thing to troubleshoot.

 

[jwin615]

I mean all this in the kindest possible way, but it's gonna be a little rough so put your big boy/girl pants on and taken it like a champ. The reason you haven't gotten much response on this is none of us know where to start.
Honestly, this is a mess. IF you were to get it functional, it in no way would be reliable.
IMO, it would be a best use of time and resources to harvest what you can and take what's been learned and move on.
Get yourself some properly sized resistors and wire and try again. I applaud your resiliency.


1/4W Resistors 600pc $3

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mswEhhG

Or,
Resistors, 3k PCs $9.56

https://a.aliexpress.com/_msE48iw

Id recommend the later as it will have every value you'll likely ever need, not just the most common.
I've used Ali sourced resistors for a few years now and they haven't let me down yet. It's just easier to buy a big pack for $10 and keep moving. Find something else that's "Choice" labeled to get your total up to $10 and you'll get free shipping. Rotary switches can be had for cheap so maybe find a second one of those if needed.
A couple of recipe card boxes from your local dollar store is a decent cheap way to keep the resistors organized to start out. One for 1R-1K, the other 1K+ to 10M.
And get some 26awg wire. 24 will work but it is tight in some situations, particularly switch solder lugs.
Keep your old resistors for breadboard use. They're great for that.
I know this isn't what you want to hear but it's probably what you need to hear. Take the lessons learned, get the proper tools for the job and give it another go. Good luck and happy building.

 

[sdnorris]

I mean all this in the kindest possible way, but it's gonna be a little rough so put your big boy/girl pants on and taken it like a champ. The reason you haven't gotten much response on this is none of us know where to start.
Honestly, this is a mess. IF you were to get it functional, it in no way would be reliable.
IMO, it would be a best use of time and resources to harvest what you can and take what's been learned and move on.
Get yourself some properly sized resistors and wire and try again. I applaud your resiliency.


1/4W Resistors 600pc $3

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mswEhhG

Or,
Resistors, 3k PCs $9.56

https://a.aliexpress.com/_msE48iw

Id recommend the later as it will have every value you'll likely ever need, not just the most common.
I've used Ali sourced resistors for a few years now and they haven't let me down yet. It's just easier to buy a big pack for $10 and keep moving. Find something else that's "Choice" labeled to get your total up to $10 and you'll get free shipping. Rotary switches can be had for cheap so maybe find a second one of those if needed.
A couple of recipe card boxes from your local dollar store is a decent cheap way to keep the resistors organized to start out. One for 1R-1K, the other 1K+ to 10M.
And get some 26awg wire. 24 will work but it is tight in some situations, particularly switch solder lugs.
Keep your old resistors for breadboard use. They're great for that.
I know this isn't what you want to hear but it's probably what you need to hear. Take the lessons learned, get the proper tools for the job and give it another go. Good luck and happy building.

I really appreciate this actually so no worries about it being rough. Been working on this project on and off for months because I kept realizing I had bought the wrong parts or had to figure out how to do the next step but I think I've been avoiding having to just start from scratch, maybe just suffering from sunk-cost-fallacy thinking. As you can probably tell, it's my first time doing one of these. It probably does make sense to just pull everything out and start over with the right parts (and with a machine-drilled enclosure, because I fucked that part up too -_-).
I basically made this post to gauge whether this kind of issue had an obvious solution. I was obviously hoping that someone might see the board and hear the sound and go "aha! it's a classic case of the whatever, ya just have to do this and you'll be all set!", but was also prepared for someone to just say "It's entirely unclear what's going on here, you're fucked".
So yeah, I actually really appreciate the advice, it gives me something to do. Gonna get this thing working at some point, just gonna take longer than I was hoping.

 

[sdnorris]

Update on this: I ordered the resistor pack linked to above, I ordered the correctly shaped potentiometers, and I tried another build on the spare PCB that I ordered, and now everything is working perfectly and it sounds fucking great. Thanks to everyone for the help and support.