Crunch Captain Deluxe low volume?

ragamuffin

ragamuffin

Well-known member
I recently built a Crunch Captain Deluxe and it sounds good and seems to be working but overall volume is low.

With the Mode switch in the middle (classic Crunch Box/high gain) and clipping switch to the right (LED clipping, the lighter clipping option) with Gain at noon I have to nearly max the volume to get unity level. In the heavier clipping setting (to the left) I can hardly reach unity.

Does this sound normal, or is something off?

IMG_2507.jpg
 
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Chuck D. Bones said:
How's the visual inspection going? We looked in the easy places, now we have to look everywhere else.
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I've gone over all the resistor and cap values twice now and all the values appear to be correct.

I haven't found any visibly bad solder joints or accidental connections etc.

I just went in and reflowed the solder joints that aren't easily visible from the top of the board (electolytic and box caps mainly), but I haven't retested yet since my DC jack is on life support.

Thanks everyone for the continued help and support!
 
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I had the opposite problem with a soul drive one time - the gain control acted like it was maxed when it wasn't. I swapped out the pot and repaired a broken solder pad and then it worked.

Are you getting 18v at pin 1 of Q1?
 
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ragamuffin said:
While I was fooling around with everything one of the DC lugs snapped off. So I guess further explorations will have to wait until I get a new one in the mail! I'm getting an outie this time so it will have room. The lug was already weak because I had to bend it to make it fit, so I had ordered a new DC jack the other day already.

View attachment 98989
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This has happened to me; I ordered too many cheapo DC jacks. I will only order better quality ones now — meanwhile, a solution...

I solder a jumper from the main "+" tab to the battery-tab and wired up the PCB's 9v to the battery tab — waste not, want not.
Most all of my builds do not permit powering by battery.
 
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I feel like the problem is with your charge pump as those values are not close to 18v or -9v. Are your D101 and D102 facing the correct direction? Should be opposites

Also, are your elec caps rated for 25v?
 
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falco_femoralis said:
I feel like the problem is with your charge pump as those values are not close to 18v or -9v. Are your D101 and D102 facing the correct direction? Should be opposites

Also, are your elec caps rated for 25v?
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D101 and D102 seem to be facing the right direction, the stripe (though slightly worn off) matches up with the one on the pcb

Electrolytics are all 50v
 
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To use the audio probe, plug your amp into the jack and connect ground to one of the ground point on the circuit. You'll need to inject some sort of signal going into the circuit (a looper pedal works great here). Trace through the schematic (this circuit is pretty ambitious for your first go around) and find your problem area where the volume drops. Don't bother checking signal on any points going to ground. You won't hear anything.
 
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