PCBGM Ash Device Troubleshooting

[Rodent]

Hello,

i´ve build the Ash Device from PCBGM but unfortunately the pedal doesn´t work neither when it´s activated nor when i turn it off. The status LED is activated when i push the footswitch but i can´t hear anything. It´s completly quiet. When i turn the pedal off i can´t hear any guitar, too. I have already checked the polarity of the capacitors and semicondoctors and they are fine. My suggestion is that i made any mistakes with the wiring. Can you please help me with the wiring?

The wiring is based on the schematics from pcbgm. I connected the sleeves of both jacks with each other and then i connected the sleeve of the output jack with the negative pin of the dc jack and last i connected the negative pin of the dc jack with the solder lug on the on the circuit board (on the left, next to the soldering eye for the phase).

The trim pot on the pcb is set to the middle position.

 

[Mcknib]

You should get bypass without power and even if you plug your cables in the wrong way around bypass simply connects your in jack straight to your out jack via the 3PDT switch try reflowing your in and out jack solder joints

It's very difficult to see and trace your wiring from your images

It does look like you've mixed up C4 and 5 values although that shouldn't stop audio

 

[Rodent]

I made some better fotos from the pedal and i´ve checked the diode and the transistors with the multimeter. the semiconductors work properly. unfortunately my multimeter has no circuit indicator so it´s difficult to trace the wiring. i also checked the solder lugs and they seem to be okay.

 

[Drayve85]

Make sure there’s no shorts in the lugs of the stomp switch, and the lugs connecting the stomp switch breakout board to the main board. A lil piece of stray wire, or even some fluxes can really cause ya nightmares!

 

[Rodent]

there are no shorts in the lugs of the breakout board and the circuit board. i´ve checked it twice and the status led is working when i turn the pedal on but it´s completely dead even when i turn it off. but might the wiring of the jacks cause the problem?

 

[Mcknib]

From his 3PDT pcb documentation it doesn't actually show by switch lug number how it connects assuming it connects like this



To check bypass throw 2 (red lines) you'd check from in jack tip to lug 2 down to lug 3 along the jumper to lug 9 up to lug 8 to the out jack tip

If your meter doesn't have continuity checking use the resistance check, for a good connection you'd want little to no resistance

Place one probe on the actual in jack tip with the other probe to lug 2 then lug 2 to 3 and so on as indicated above till you get to the out jack tip

Or if you've got an audio probe use that

 

[BrainDrain]

there are no shorts in the lugs of the breakout board and the circuit board. i´ve checked it twice and the status led is working when i turn the pedal on but it´s completely dead even when i turn it off. but might the wiring of the jacks cause the problem?

Possibly could be a bad trace (faulty connection) in the daughterboard on the 3pdt switch. Or maybe even a faulty 3pdt but that seems less likely since the LED is getting switched on. Sounds like it's powering up ok and connecting to ground to switch the LED on but not getting any sound when switched off seems like a signal routing issue. I'd replace the switch and daughterboard just to see. It sounds like the signal is just stopping at the spot where it's connected to the daughterboard and not entering the PCB or the output jacket when switched off. Earlier this year I built a Beetronics Whocthell clone using the Pedalpcb board and it ended up having a bad trace so I had to run a small jumper around it to complete the connection. Just a tiny manufacturing defect can make a PCB not work and I'd assume its possible with any brand of PCB. Only happened to me once so far but it is possible.

 

[Feral Feline]

I like your pot-stickers.

I've had faulty jacks before — or rather, I should say, I've had faulty jack-shaped-objects before.

Perhaps too much heat was applied to the 3PDT while soldering the daughterboard, ie not enough time to let a lug cool before soldering the next. Anyway, I've got nothing for you that hasn't already been flagged by others.