SOLVED Gravitation Reverb no reverb

[zuboski]

I've built the Gravitation reverb and there is only the clean sound. The reverb isn't working and the led doesn't light up either. If someone could help me with what troubleshooting steps I should follow it'd be very helpful.

 

[Nic]

A picture is worth a thousand words. Please post a few pictures showing clearly the components, solder and wiring.

 

[Harry Klippton]

As Nic said, we'll need some pictures. There's a lot we don't know so far. Maybe your switching isn't working and you're not even sending your guitar signal through the effect. First things to check are the wiring diagram and components to make sure they're the right values in the right places

 

[jwin615]

And make sure you didn't plug in to the out. Easy to do when it's late and the pedal is down side up on the bench
With no led, check you switching with a DMM, check you power for reversed polarity(if wrong, check D100 for damage) and check led for orientation.

For the switch, power off, continuity/diode mode, you should have continuity between the middle row and the top and bottom rows, depending on switch position. It is possible to overheat the switches when soldering and bork them.
If all that checks out, post pics clear of both sides of the board please.

 

[zuboski]

Okay yes, so this is my setup to test pedals. I just crosschecked with some others I've made and they're working properly. No switch is involved so that shouldn't be the problem here. I will check with a DMM. I also feel like I did a really bad job while cutting the extra leads and might have damaged some part of the pcb trace.

 

[Harry Klippton]

Your soldering is not good. Many pads appear to have little to no solder and there are cold joints. You can carefully use needle nose pliers to hold the legs of the Belton brick and bend it out of the way to get to the solder joints underneath but you need to redo them

 

[zuboski]

Your soldering is not good. Many pads appear to have little to no solder and there are cold joints. You can carefully use needle nose pliers to hold the legs of the Belton brick and bend it out of the way to get to the solder joints underneath but you need to redo them

I agree, should I go through and redo and then get back? I haven't soldered the potentiometers yet

 

[Harry Klippton]

I agree, should I go through and redo and then get back? I haven't soldered the potentiometers yet

Absolutely

 

[zuboski]

Absolutely

Thanks a lot, I'll do that and test again

 

[Harry Klippton]

Start with just soldering in your potentiometers before trying to bend the reverb brick out of the way

 

[zuboski]

Start with just soldering in your potentiometers before trying to bend the reverb brick out of the way

It's working! The soldering was the issue. I have one doubt still. Is this a noisy pedal? There is some self noise, more than usual. Or did I overlook something?

 

[Nic]

I would also start by soldering the pots.
Edit, we posted at the same time, just saw it worked.

How noisy is it, don't forget that boxing it might help on that.

 

[zuboski]

I would also start by soldering the pots.
Edit, we posted at the same time, just saw it worked.

How noisy is it, don't forget that boxing it might help on that.

I think boxing might do but I'm not sure. The noise floor connecting guitar directly to the interface is -100db and with the pedal it's -73db. So noticeable.

 

[Harry Klippton]

I've never built or played this one so I can't speak to the noise floor

 

[zuboski]

I researched and the pedal is only like that. Thanks so much for helping!! I'll remember to solder better next time

 

[airbud]

It's working! The soldering was the issue. I have one doubt still. Is this a noisy pedal? There is some self noise, more than usual. Or did I overlook something?

nice job! debugging is such a slog sometimes.

 

[zuboski]

nice job! debugging is such a slog sometimes.

Yess, luckily it didn't take too long because of this forum