Kliche Mini Need advise where to start troubleshooting.

[swelchy]

Total noob..... I've tried 3 pcbs of the kliche with failure everytime. My current build allows bypass signal to pass through pedal when engaged or not engaged the signal passes and makes no difference in sound..... LED light comes on..... Turning any of the pots creates no difference when turned either direction... it's like the guitar signal just goes around the effect... I'm using the kliche breakout board for ease of wiring.... I dont get it... I measured every component with my little transistor tester before soldering... Every single part besides the IC's and those came from Tayda and should be fine right? I checked religiously for solder bridges... I have protective caps on the back of the pots.... I'm ready to just give up... I built a pedalpcb rat clone last week from start to finish in one sitting... threw it in the enclosure and it was perfect first time and that was my first pedal i've ever got to funstion so far. So far ive thrown away a timmy builfd, a fuzz face build and now about to toss three klons in the garbage.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Do you have a multimeter or just a component tester? Taking voltage readings would be my first step to see what's going on.

Looking closely at the pics on a phone some of your soldering looks a bit iffy

 

[swelchy]

I can try to take some better pics of joints.... The soldering is quite fine... i have very decent soldering station. its lead free so not shiny. Id say the joints are soldered pretty good.... i paid special attention to each joint... watching it wick into the pad and pulling the iron away at that moment... trimmed the lead... then reflowed the joint to follow up... I do have a multimeter.. just don't know where to start poking.

 

[swelchy]

Here is a shot of the back of the pcb when I was putting in resistors... going to leave it in enclosure for now so I can do whatever testing you guys recommend so I don't have to unsolder power connector. I'm 99% positive it's not a solder bridge or cold solder joint. I'm confident my soldering is decent. If I have to take out of enclosure for testing I'll take more pics.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Take voltages of the pins on the ICs and post your results in the thread. That might help narrow it down.

 

[music6000]

Here is a shot of the back of the pcb when I was putting in resistors... going to leave it in enclosure for now so I can do whatever testing you guys recommend so I don't have to unsolder power connector. I'm 99% positive it's not a solder bridge or cold solder joint. I'm confident my soldering is decent. If I have to take out of enclosure for testing I'll take more pics.

C21 is in backwards!

Update: Just check that your Output Jack terminal is not touching enclosure, IT'S real close in Picture top right corner !!!

 

[Big Monk]

If guitar signal is passing though unaffected regardless of stomp switch position, it sounds like you have an issue with the switch wiring.

 

[Big Monk]

C21 is in backwards!

Yeah it is! Good catch!

 

[swelchy]

Nice... C21 is backwards... I'll pull it in a bit and flip it around!

 

[Kroars]

Total noob..... I've tried 3 pcbs of the kliche with failure everytime. My current build allows bypass signal to pass through pedal when engaged or not engaged the signal passes and makes no difference in sound..... LED light comes on..... Turning any of the pots creates no difference when turned either direction... it's like the guitar signal just goes around the effect... I'm using the kliche breakout board for ease of wiring.... I dont get it... I measured every component with my little transistor tester before soldering... Every single part besides the IC's and those came from Tayda and should be fine right? I checked religiously for solder bridges... I have protective caps on the back of the pots.... I'm ready to just give up... I built a pedalpcb rat clone last week from start to finish in one sitting... threw it in the enclosure and it was perfect first time and that was my first pedal i've ever got to funstion so far. So far ive thrown away a timmy builfd, a fuzz face build and now about to toss three klons in the garbage.

Hard to tell in the picture, but it looks like S6 (far right eyelet) on your breakout board has a blob of solder in the wire but not making contact with the eyelet on the breakout board. There’s a few other spots where you’ve got some suspicious blobs as well. I’d try to reflow those around 750-800 F. Also, looks like your GE diodes could be backwards as well. In my experience the little silver ball inside the diode is typically on the cathode side.

 

[swelchy]

ok... Success!.. Sort of.. My dumb self actually was testing the pedal on my pedalboard because all my power connectors are on my board and I have that particular part of my signal chain in a loop and the preset I was on for my Morningstar MC6 had that part of the loop turned off... I plugged straight into the amp and it sounds freaking awesome and works as it should.... That being said...

Do I really need to pull the board back out of the enclosure and swap the polarity on C21? Is is going to hurt anything? What effect would it have for being backwards?

 

[SillyOctpuss]

They can blow. It would make a lot of sense to fix it.

 

[swelchy]