Arcadiator pcb

[Zanius]

Hey guys, my problem isn't really on a vero build from the blog but for an arcadiator v.2 pcb, but I didn't know where else to turn for help so here goes.

I've bought the pcb from parasit and went ahead of myself and soldered everything on it to hear it. It worked fine then. What a circuit, It's mind-blowing. Congrats to Fred for this.

I got the box ready a week after and started boxing. Of course the switches needed some tweeking to fit in the box so I took some time reheating them to fit it. I made a little mess, especially around the dpdt switch and sanded it a bit to remove all the resin. You can see in the photo some of the coating got off.
Connections between the states of the switches still reads ok though.
After boxing I get very low output (need to get amp and volume all the way up to hear it). All controls respond as they should though.


(ignore the black wire, it snapped while moving the board around to see what is wrong and take the photo)

It has been two days now and still can't figure it out.
-Switched all the Ics
-Resoldered pots and switches
-Ran the knife through anything that could cause a bridge, maybe four times.

All offboard wiring is approved by my multimeter.
My guess is that I may have damaged a switch or pot while resoldering, but I don't wanna fiddle around blindly and completely destroy this beautiful pcb + its a pita to desolder those switches.

I guess the question is kinda general since It happened before to have a circuit work but with very low output. Are there any usual suspects when this happens? (I'm looking at you capacitors)
I just hope I haven't already totaled the board.(is this possible?)

Also, here is the build doc with schematic, I hope Fred doesn't mind since it's public on his site.
http://www.parasitstudio.se/uploads/2/4/4/9/2449159/arcadiator_2_doc.pdf

Haven't really measured all the voltages, but since I started the topic I might as well do that too.

**Edit** Used on of those 20mm monster leds for the first time, could that be causing toubles?

[Beaker]

I would be looking at your pot wire connections on the board. The volume pot joins look like christmas puddings - always a bad sign, as does one of the width pot lugs.

Your off board connections look a little cooked too.

Your switch connections look good.

Try removing the solder again (carefully) and you might need to use some flux remover spray and a Q tip to take off the brown flux residue.

Then try again, and all should be good.

[Zanius]

Thanx for the reply Beaker!

Yeah, looks like a mess...
It came to this after numerous resoldering sessions. Pots look like this because they aren't snipped and you know how light can play games on a soldered blob. Not saying they are perfect either, but I also soldered the otherside to make sure they are properly connected.

Anyway, I guess it is a pot/switch connection problem since that's the only thing that has changed since it first worked. I'll take everything apart, test each component and then try again. That will take some time and courage I don't currently have.

I'm not much of a schematic reader and I hoped there would be an obvious problem where some switch wouldn't behave properly. But as I said before, despite the low output, every control works fine.

Also, about the Ic readings, I started measuring but it seems everything changes with each switch flip and that would be unreadable.

I'll leave it aside for now and start over again sometime soon.

[Freppo]

Hi Zanius,

Sorry to hear that you are having problems with your build, and sorry for not responding earlier.

First, use your multimeter to test the value of the volume pot. Faulty passive components are rare, except pots. Also, check that R19 is really 100K. You can try removing it and put a link there insted. It should increase the output alot.

Other than that I think Beaker has given some good tips already.

I hope that helps
/ Fredrik

[Zanius]

Hey!
Didn't see your reply there, thanks!

Well, replaced R19 (was really 100K) with a link and no real difference.

Took out the volume pot (witch works fine btw) and put a link between pads 2&3 just to be sure I get full output. Still no difference.

While putting my hand in there trying to press components I noticed the output came all out when my hand touched r19(now a link) and volume link.  (there you are!!)

Linked the top pad of r19 to the link between "a" and "b" pads, and still low output.
Linked it straight to the volume pad and voila! Now got full output. The problem was somehow between the abc pads and volume pad.

So what I will do is, put a 100K res straight from top pad of r19 to pad 3 of volume.

Don't know why this happened, maybe I scratched the board trying to clean it up or something.
Anyway, now it works, so case closed! Thanx for the interest!

[Freppo]

Great! I'm happy to hear that you manage to solve it. :)

[Beaker]

+1.

[Zanius]

You thought you were done with me?

Now, the Arcadiator controls can get pretty complicated with all the switches and combinations.

I noticed that with all the switches down, when I roll the Blend knob to the right, there is nothing there. There is sound only after I flip the Mode or/and Lfo switch. I couldn't really tell if this was meant to happen so I checked some youtube videos. It seems this shouldn't happen according to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWq-l5igRuE   (on 5:50 all switches down and blend turned up)

For starters, am I wrong or should I once again pull the poor thing out of the box?
As I state in nearly every post I make I'm not much of a schematic reader, and all the switches make it impossible for me to understand what really happens.

[tabbycat]

re the offboard wiring, i've had problems before when i've relied on the plastic insulation as a 'shoulder' to stop the wire going through the hole when preparing to solder.

when everything is cold the wire can't slip through, but when you heat it up the wire and melted insulation can slide through the hole, mix with the solder, and give you dirty and unreliable solder plastic mush joins. the charring around the holes suggest this may have happened.

whether it has, and whether it has happened enough to be a problem is a maybe. but maybe cleaning up those connections would give you the answer as to whether they are at fault.

now i use one of those grabby hands things to keep wire and pcb a fixed distance apart to stop that sliding through. works for me.

i hope you get it fixed. sounds like a sweet pedal from the demos.

[Zanius]

Hey tabby, we are past this step, as the pedal works in general except from (what I guess is ) part of the circuit. All pots are angled pcb so, no plastic in the connections whatsoever. Aside from that, when the Lfo or mode kicks in, blend works fine, so the problem is somewhere on the board.

Just posted the problem in hope there is a straight answer at what I should look at. I will unbox it for sure as it seems and look for myself.  I have de/resoldered those wires so many times, it won't get better. The pic is from the past (seems so long ago now), now the situation is (kinda) better.

Yeah, I had the same problem with wires when I first started, now I use "helping hands" for soldering wires and works great for me. Takes some time but I am happy with the result!

That IS a sweet pedal, even with the handicap it currently has, I can't stop playing it!

[Silver Blues]

I agree with that tip. I sometimes use the helping hands and sometimes just tape the wire to the side of my vise while I solder which does the same job.

[Freppo]

Zanius wrote

You thought you were done with me?

Now, the Arcadiator controls can get pretty complicated with all the switches and combinations.

I noticed that with all the switches down, when I roll the Blend knob to the right, there is nothing there. There is sound only after I flip the Mode or/and Lfo switch. I couldn't really tell if this was meant to happen so I checked some youtube videos. It seems this shouldn't happen according to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWq-l5igRuE   (on 5:50 all switches down and blend turned up)

For starters, am I wrong or should I once again pull the poor thing out of the box?
As I state in nearly every post I make I'm not much of a schematic reader, and all the switches make it impossible for me to understand what really happens.

That's normal. :)
Think of the Arcadiator as having two signal paths

1. Fuzz and Octave up or PWM (controls: Width and PWM switch)
2. Octave down (controls: Mode switch, Octave switch, LFO switch and Rate)

The blend pot blends between there two, so when both the Octave down and LFO is disengaged there is nothing to blend to in the CW position.

Cheers
/ Fredrik

[Zanius]

Now I'm so happy I asked before desoldering half the board again.

Thanks Fred, and in case I haven't mentioned it Congrats on the circuits you design.