Quicklime Girl below unity output

[bluedmc777]

So I finished this up and I’m getting below unity gain with all knobs maxed. Seems like the only know that does anything is the Drive, top left knob, while the others don’t seem to do anything. At first I accidentally had a 100n C5 (1uf) location. Thinking that was the solution I replaced it but the outcome is exactly the same. Works in bypass, led comes on, both transistors tested to be working on my cheap CCT, but it isn’t working as it should. I’ve tried 2 different BS170s. I’ve confirmed that the 2N2222A legs are oriented correctly. Can’t decide if I should just chalk this up as a loss or if it’s fixable. I’ve never really troubleshooted anything so hopefully I can learn something and fix it. Any ideas on what would make it behave this way? Any help would be appreciated but please be patient with me if I have noob questions for the troubleshooting process lol! @Chuck D. Bones @szukalski @MichaelW

 

[z2amiller]

What's goin on with (what I assume) is the LED, right above where the footswitch is attached? It looks like a short from + to -.
(I guess it would go through the CLR so it's not a dead short, but... ). If you don't want an LED in there you should be able
to leave it unpopulated.

Do you have a "map" of what goes where to check the resistor codes?
(It's a simple enough circuit that I can almost trace it by eye and it looks ok, but ... )

At least in the first photo, it looks like your pots are incompletely soldered, if you haven't done so,
you should reflow those and add some solder (and flux if you have it).
Diodes also could use a touch more solder, it looks like they might be incompletely soldered.

Do you have a pot condom on the gain pot? Any chance it is contacting the solder points in back?

 

[bluedmc777]

Talking about something like this? I’ll reflow the pots and double check the values. It’s probably staring me in the face. I don’t see where the led is shorted. I’m not having any issues with the led. Appreciate the help!

 

[z2amiller]

Not my board so I'm not sure, but from your pictures it looks like there's just a loop of metal connecting those two
pads, rather than the leads of a LED. But I dunno if it's supposed to be that way. Based on the traces you're gonna
want to have an LED in there and not the pads shorted together. (Or nothing at all, if you don't want the LED)

 

[bluedmc777]

They’re supposed to be there. The led is on the daughter board. The leds are soldered on there you just can’t really see it on the pics.