SOLVED No sound from Parentheses Fuzz (first build)

[sdnorris]

Hello all,
I've just finished my first PedalPCB build after significant trials and frustrations. Had to do many different Tayda orders but learned a lot about parts in the process!
As I was expecting might be the case, I've just finished soldering together the Parentheses Fuzz, and I'm not getting any signal through it. The switches work and they toggle their corresponding LEDs, and the potentiometers do seem to be affecting the ground hum/hiss that is making its way to the amp (you can hear this in the video), but I'm not getting any signal from the guitar even when the pedal is bypassed. Not sure where to even begin troubleshooting this.
I've attached some pictures and videos of the board, any advice would be appreciated, thank you in advance!

 

[Robert]

No sound in bypass points to an issue with the Distortion or Boost footswitch or their corresponding wiring (or the jacks, but they appear to be wired correctly).

None of the components on the PCB will affect bypass when both Distortion and Boost are switched off.

Also, it sounds silly, but make sure you have the guitar plugged into the input and the output plugged into the amp... it happens.

 

[sdnorris]

No sound in bypass points to an issue with the Distortion or Boost footswitch or their corresponding wiring (or the jacks, but they appear to be wired correctly).

None of the components on the PCB will affect bypass when both Distortion and Boost are switched off.

Also, it sounds silly, but make sure you have the guitar plugged into the input and the output plugged into the amp... it happens.

Not silly at all, that's what I did wrong the first time. Got it mixed up flipping the board over.
But that doesn't seem to be source of the problem, so I'll double check the wiring on the jacks, thanks.
EDIT: Just realized you meant the jacks look to be wired correctly, but that the Distortion and/or Boost switches might be the issue, will check those.

 

[sdnorris]

Still some problems, but some success! I mixed up two of the wires on the Distortion switch, so I corrected that and I now have sound in bypass!
The Boost circuit works, but now toggling Distortion on cuts all of the sound. Also it doesn't sound like the Octave circuit is doing anything. Any further advice?

 

[bhcarpenter]

I believe that in this circuit the octave only has an effect when the distortion is turned on, so it’s not surprising that you aren’t hearing anything if the distortion isn’t working.

Next steps would be a visual inspection - check each joint to make sure it is soldered well, then double check your component values. If that doesn’t turn up anything, I’d make an audio probe and start tracing the signal path to see where it drops out.

 

[sdnorris]

Just found another thread that had some issues with the pedal, and realised that they also swapped the PF5102s for J176s. I did the same without realizing that the pinouts for the PF5102 are 1) Drain, 2) Source, 3) Gate, and the J176's are 1) Drain 2) Gate 3) Source (see screenshots of their datasheets). -_-
Luckily I socketed them, so I can just pop them out, but I'm gonna have to figure out a way to swap pins 2 and 3 on the J176s, then do another test.

 

[sdnorris]

Okay managed to swap those pins for the moment by sticking them on a breadboard and running wires to the sockets, and I am now getting sound with Distortion engaged, but something is still wrong. Hard to describe exactly what, so I'll include a video, but it sounds crackley and poppy. There's lots of spikes in the signal, and it's quiet most of the time. The video shows a demo of the pedal in bypass, and then a demo of it with Distortion engaged.
But hey, making progress, moving further down the signal chain! Any idea which specific components I should check at this stage? Or should I just make an audio probe and see where I get to?

 

[sdnorris]

I'm sort of asking a different question at this point, so I might mark this as solved and open a new thread.