Your Valhalla Has Weird Holes.

[Caldo71]

Hey @Robert so there are all these unmarked pads on the Valhalla PCB, and they're not listed or mentioned on the build doc either, so I'm not sure what to do.

PCB photo with "mystery pads" circled and numbered is at the bottom of this post, referred to number-by-number in the following:

1. These two actually ARE marked as in/gnd, but you normally separate these at the front and back of your pedals respectively, so I'm just making sure this is truly the case.
   
2. No markings on PCB or build doc for these—they are symmetrical to the "in/gnd" on the left side, so are these then "out/gnd" or is this something else entirely? Maybe they're part of "3" (read on)...
   
3. These are RIGHT next to "2", so yeah are they somehow related or what is going on with these two.
   
4. Normally on the front you have an in, an out, and the footswitchey pair...but on this PCB we have a couple extra pads here and again nothing's marked. So idunno if four out of six are as I'd just described and then there are a couple extra for who-knows-what, or what else could be gong on here.

Lemme know! Thanks!

 

[spi]

It's in the build doc.

 

[Caldo71]

It's in the build doc.

View attachment 55080

Oh haha @spi here's how stupid I am: I make these things without footswitches - they go into rack enclosures, are wired with a jumper to be "always on", and are instead turned on/off with a looper in my way of using 'em - and so, not needing to wire in the footswitch etc, I never ever print out that page that has the wiring diagram! it's like it never even occurred to my dumb ass to look at that, as if they don't even exist!

So aaaanyways, that being the case, can somebody clue me in on how to jumper those six pads up at the very front so that I can do my "always on" thing as-described above?

 

[eh là bas ma]

I think the yellow wire is jack Out, pink is pcb Out, red is 9v (for the led to be activated by footswitch), blue is ground, orange is pcb In (grounded by footswitch when effect is off and connected to jack In when it's on), green is jack In.

When activated, the signal path should be : jack In > pcb In > pcb out > jack out, so you put a jumper between jack in and pcb in (green and orange), another between pcb out and jack out (pink and yellow). I guess that should work ?

I could be confusing pcb in/out and jacks in/out pads. But it doesn't really matter, i guess.

Leave Ground and 9V pads alone, unless you want a status led, showing that the effect is on.

 

[szukalski]

You can always get out your DMM and check the connectivity between pads. It would give your answer and help learn better troubleshooting. That little beep of the DMM haunts me in my sleep.

 

[Caldo71]

You can always get out your DMM and check the connectivity between pads. It would give your answer and help learn better troubleshooting. That little beep of the DMM haunts me in my sleep.

Okay so @szukalski it's as simple as: if I touch the first probe of the DMM to one of the pads, and then whichever pad I touch next with the other probe that eventually give me the "beeep" that continuity will for sure be the "closing of the loop" that I'm after? Keep going with that method until all the loops are closed?

A lot of these things may seem intuitive to you guys but talk to me like I'm an idiot...I'm learning as much as I can as fast as I can about the actual practical applied theory of how all this stuff actually does what it does, so I don't have to keep asking dumb questions. But it's a long road.

Thank you for that detailed info @eh là bas ma !

 

[szukalski]

Okay so @szukalski it's as simple as: if I touch the first probe of the DMM to one of the pads, and then whichever pad I touch next with the other probe that eventually give me the "beeep" that continuity will for sure be the "closing of the loop" that I'm after? Keep going with that method until all the loops are closed?

A lot of these things may seem intuitive to you guys but talk to me like I'm an idiot...I'm learning as much as I can as fast as I can about the actual practical applied theory of how all this stuff actually does what it does, so I don't have to keep asking dumb questions. But it's a long road.

Thank you for that detailed info @eh là bas ma !

No worries mate! We’re all on a journey of learning. The road gets longer the more you discover!

You’re spot on, you use the DMM as you mentioned. Then you’ll know where they connect (or not). It’s a bit harder with pads for jacks, sometimes they’re not shown on a schematic. Some vendors, like Madbean, show the PCB layout and you can see where the traces are. That makes life easier, else you need to reverse engineer a bit yourself..