SOLVED Duo-Phase Ticking (mainly when left side is engaged)

[jwyles90]

Hey all!

I just finished putting together this Duo-Phase, and everything is working as it should except I'm getting a fair amount LFO ticking from it. It happens the most prominently when the left side (looking at the front of the enclosure) is engaged, or when it's bypassed altogether. If I've got the right side engaged, or both at the same time, it's virtually nonexistent.

I went through and looked at all the other troubleshooting threads with this similar issue, and it seems that moving the wires around can sometimes help. I gave that a shot, and even tried using some shielded wire on the in/out jacks, and it didn't really seem to mitigate the issue all that much. I've also never used shielded wire, so there could very well be something to it that I'm unaware I need to do to make it function properly.

I suspect that I might also be getting some noise from the switched jack input wire, since it impacted the ticking a bit when I moved it around while it was plugged into my amp. I'm going to try rerouting all the wires that run the length of the enclosure to go underneath the PCB when I get home from work today, but in the meantime, I was wondering if there was anything else I could look for or try to do that maybe I'm not spotting or thinking of. Thanks in advance for all your help!!

 

[Erik S]

I forget how that signal flow works with the switching jack, but have you tried moving the wire that's running in between the electrolytics?

 

[jwyles90]

I forget how that signal flow works with the switching jack, but have you tried moving the wire that's running in between the electrolytics?

Not yet, last night I was mainly focused on trying to swap out the In/Out wires for shielded ones. I can give that a shot when I get home later!

 

[kristopher]

I haven’t built this phase…yet. But I do believe all wires should be away from the board as best as possible. I agree with Erik, try moving the wires away from the electrolytics. Underneath is an option.

 

[Erik S]

Ran mine like this and it's quiet.

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/attachments/905dd26e-9f87-44c5-a8be-76899bd931d6-jpeg.46070/

 

[jwyles90]

Ran mine like this and it's quiet.

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/attachments/905dd26e-9f87-44c5-a8be-76899bd931d6-jpeg.46070/

That looks great! What kind of wire did you use? I'll give that wire routing a try

 

[Erik S]

That looks great! What kind of wire did you use? I'll give that wire routing a try

Nothing special. Same 22g solid Amazon stuff I use on everything.

 

[jwyles90]

Nothing special. Same 22g solid Amazon stuff I use on everything.

Cool, mine is probably the same stuff then.

 

[jwyles90]

So kind of a good news bad news update. I rerouted the remaining wiring to go underneath the board, and the ticking still is pretty audible. I even tried swapping the shielded wire back out for regular (which was a bad idea), then swapped it back. As it is now it’s just loud enough to be annoying.

The good news is that I saw another thread that mentioned running a buffer before the phaser as a workaround. I tried that out and it completely eliminated the ticking. I'm not sure if I should try one of those tiny buffers in the FX loop on the pedal itself, or maybe try wiring it up to have a buffered bypass on the footswitch? Is that even possible?

 

[pingpongcomputer]

So kind of a good news bad news update. I rerouted the remaining wiring to go underneath the board, and the ticking still is pretty audible. I even tried swapping the shielded wire back out for regular (which was a bad idea), then swapped it back. As it is now it’s just loud enough to be annoying.

The good news is that I saw another thread that mentioned running a buffer before the phaser as a workaround. I tried that out and it completely eliminated the ticking. I'm not sure if I should try one of those tiny buffers in the FX loop on the pedal itself, or maybe try wiring it up to have a buffered bypass on the footswitch? Is that even possible?

View attachment 73737

I might be wrong but it looks like the shield for the in/out wires isn't grounded. You might try grounding the shield on at least one end of each run. Usually the signal source side of you're only grounding one end to avoid ground loops. The sleeve lug on the input jack and the ground pad on the 3pdt board for the wire going to the output jack should do the trick.

 

[jwyles90]

I might be wrong but it looks like the shield for the in/out wires isn't grounded. You might try grounding the shield on at least one end of each run. Usually the signal source side of you're only grounding one end to avoid ground loops. The sleeve lug on the input jack and the ground pad on the 3pdt board for the wire going to the output jack should do the trick.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but would that mean just soldering another little wire from the external part of the shielded wire to the sleeve lug? I've never used shielded wire before so I'm not entirely sure what all needs to be done to get it work properly. This wire is just a stranded core underneath all the shielding.

 

[jwyles90]

Also, I saw another thread mention that swapping out tl022s for IC6 A and B might help. I gave that a shot and it pretty much eliminated all the ticking.

 

[Giorfida]

I might be wrong but it looks like the shield for the in/out wires isn't grounded. You might try grounding the shield on at least one end of each run. Usually the signal source side of you're only grounding one end to avoid ground loops. The sleeve lug on the input jack and the ground pad on the 3pdt board for the wire going to the output jack should do the trick.

Good catch! Shielded wire with no ground connection to shield is called an antenna!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but would that mean just soldering another little wire from the external part of the shielded wire to the sleeve lug? I've never used shielded wire before so I'm not entirely sure what all needs to be done to get it work properly. This wire is just a stranded core underneath all the shielding.

Exactly how to do it. Just remember you only connect the shield at 1 end (unlike guitar cables where it’s attached at both ends)

 

[pingpongcomputer]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but would that mean just soldering another little wire from the external part of the shielded wire to the sleeve lug? I've never used shielded wire before so I'm not entirely sure what all needs to be done to get it work properly. This wire is just a stranded core underneath all the shielding.

Yes that would work. Usually when I'm doing shielded wires I leave it longer than needed and tease out half of the braided shield on each end with a small screwdriver or pick awl. Then you can twist up the loose strands from the shield to make a pseudo wire for soldering to ground. In this case it's probably easiest just to solder another small wire to the shield and then solder the other end to the ground point. I also usually ground both ends of the shield and haven't run into any ground loops, but some people say only grounding one end works better. It probably doesn't matter as long as the shield has a relatively low impedance path to ground.

 

[jwyles90]

Exactly how to do it. Just remember you only connect the shield at 1 end (unlike guitar cables where it’s attached at both ends)

Yes that would work. Usually when I'm doing shielded wires I leave it longer then needed and tease out half of the braided shield on each end with a small screwdriver or pick awl. Then you can twist up the loose strands from the shield to make a pseudo wire for soldering to ground. In this case it's probably easiest just to solder another small wire to the shield and then solder the other end to the ground points.

Awesome. I'll give that a shot when I get home and that should hopefully be enough for me to mark this one as solved.

 

[andare]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but would that mean just soldering another little wire from the external part of the shielded wire to the sleeve lug? I've never used shielded wire before so I'm not entirely sure what all needs to be done to get it work properly. This wire is just a stranded core underneath all the shielding.

Shielded wire is simply wire with a metal braid around it. The braid has a lot of mass so captures the ticking and then sends it to ground (if you ground it
Just like a guitar cable.

 

[giovanni]

Also, I saw another thread mention that swapping out tl022s for IC6 A and B might help. I gave that a shot and it pretty much eliminated all the ticking.

Mine has the ticking too and I was planning on doing this. People recommend it.

 

[jwyles90]

Shielded wire is simply wire with a metal braid around it. The braid has a lot of mass so captures the ticking and then sends it to ground (if you ground it
Just like a guitar cable.

So I gave that a shot and somehow it made it worse? haha. When I turn my amp up or play a guitar with higher output pickups the ticking is pretty noticeable, from the IC B side of the pedal specifically. I'm gonna try putting together a simple tiny buffer and run that into the pedal input to see if that does anything, since running a buffered pedal before it seemed to help a lot.

 

[andare]

So I gave that a shot and somehow it made it worse? haha. When I turn my amp up or play a guitar with higher output pickups the ticking is pretty noticeable, from the IC B side of the pedal specifically. I'm gonna try putting together a simple tiny buffer and run that into the pedal input to see if that does anything, since running a buffered pedal before it seemed to help a lot.

Did you ground the shield on one side only (the jack sleeve)? Did you use shielded wire for all in/out wires on all jacks?

 

[jwyles90]

Did you ground the shield on one side only (the jack sleeve)? Did you use shielded wire for all in/out wires on all jacks?

I attached a wire from the shield to the ground lug on the input jack, and then another one from the output wire to the ground part of the footswitch. Should I just ground one of them?

And I just used it for the main in/out jacks. It's a lot more clunky to work with than I thought, and I've gotta wrap everything in heatshrink to stop it from touching the enclosure/other components and grounding the whole circuit. I'd hoped that just the main in/out wiring would be enough, but I can try using shielded wire for the other two jacks as well.