Frequency Central "Stasis Leak": sudden extreme white noise

[Bigtoop]

Hi all, my first post here, I thought I'd start with this issue that's been bugging me for a while.

I've built two of these Stasis Leak pedals by Frequency Central. A Belton Abe-fx chip chorus/delay/reverb effects. It also comes as a eurorack version, that I haven't tried. Link to the pedal: https://frequencycentral.co.uk/product/pedal-stasis-leak/ I ordered this as a kit from musikding.de.

My Stasis Leak builds worked perfectly fine, but suddenly, in the middle of fun, there came a huge ear shattering wall of white noise. This has now happened a couple of times with each pedal. I can't think of anything that would cause this. The pedals were turned on and doing their thing, but I was just playing normally, not even touching anything at the moment. I did discover during the build that the Belton Abe-fx chip seemed to be quite sensitive to sudden movements etc.

I remember that the second build started to make some weird burping noises when I had forgotten it on for some time. So is it perhaps the computer overheating and then deciding to let it all out? I'm baffled by this and too afraid to use those pedals anymore. Any help would be really appreciated. Cheers.

 

[eh là bas ma]

Welcome !

I had some similar issue with the same musikding kit, with a pre-drilled enclosure.

On my build The DC power jack is too close to the pcb, so if the screw is not correctly tighten, with the DC power jack terminals as far as possible from the pcb, some short might happen and creates some annoying noises.

The DC power jack was a bit loose in its hole, and it moved slightly when i plugged and unplugged the 9V power supply.
If i tried to tighten the screw, it rubbed against the pcb and did some superficial damage. I had to make a bigger hole for the DC jack to solve the issue. Now it's almost perfectly ok *.

You might want to check this ?

Otherwise, some clear pictures of your builds could help. 1 inside the enclosure with everything installed (to check your wiring, parts orientation, etc.), and 1 pic of the soldering side (to have a good look at your soldering pads). Voltage readings, schematics link, etc.

To increase your chances to solve this quickly, you should also check this debugging guide to see how to post a perfect troubleshooting thread :

DEBUGGING - What to do when it doesn't work

DEBUGGING - What to do when it doesn't work

www.diystompboxes.com

* I still have an issue with this circuit : the tap tempo is slightly noisy, there are some cyclic noises each time i use the footswitch to set the speed.
It's totally silent only if i use the Speed knob to set the effect rate. I tried various led resistors, up to 20k, without much improvement. I doubt it comes from the tap tempo led... without it it's much quieter, but still there.
I wonder if you also noticed this issue on your builds ?

Edit :

"is it perhaps the computer overheating and then deciding to let it all out ?"

Probably not, this Belton integrated circuit device is static-sensitive, so you shouldn't touch it, unless you are grounded. You can touch something grounded, and then safely touch the Belton. I remember the Belton from the kit was protected by an anti-static bag.