SHOD needing help

[Lee Oswald]

Rebuilt another SHOD since the other one never worked despite hours of trouble shooting. This one is closer, but still not there. I'm getting very low volume, a fuzzy, farty sounding OD. And very strange, the LED takes a good 30 seconds or more to go dark after being unplugged from the 9V. I *did not* install a battery connection.

Where do I begin. I double checked the board, found one mistake in component placement, and corrected that. Seems it must be off board wiring.

Help please.

[Lazy Swamis]

From the many many mistakes I have made, I have come to the following conclusions:

When testing it is often prudent to use a known good battery instead of an adapter. Less chance of damaging something.

Testing before doing the offboard wiring is a good idea too. The bare minimum of connections leaves the least chance for something to be wrong.
For example:
1. use a battery for power
2. don't hook up any switches unless they are essential for testing. (no footswitch, clipping switches etc.)
3. If the output is through a pot i.e. "volume 2 to output" then skip that one and take the one that says volume 3 to the jack.
4. reflow the solder joints, and score the tracks. now do it again. and again. maybe once more, and check your cuts while you are at it. score the tracks again.
5. make sure your wires are tinned before they go in the hole. don't let them touch other tracks, even a little bit.
6. if after all this it still doesn't work, then check your values, placement, and orientation, then score the tracks and check your cuts.

Transistors are easy to put in backward. electrolytic caps too. I even put an IC in backward one time because i was holding the board upside down. (smokey)
Your LED is bleeding the leftover electricity from one of your caps may wanna look around them a bit.

Hope you get it! Patience and analytical thinking will get it in the end.
P.S. Google "audio probe" & build one! Great dignostic and learning tool!

[Lee Oswald]

Well, it's a little late on the battery power. Actually, I don't even own any battery connectors. I've never used them.

And I'd really hate to strip things back down, especially in light of my not knowing how far I can go before things cease working.

Not sure I understand number three.

Numbers four, five and six are done and re-done. I've checked, and rechecked diodes and electrolytic caps. There aren't any transistors in the SHOD.

I've trouble shot this thing again, and again, until my eyes hurt. Apparently something somewhere doesn't want me to successfully assemble the SHOD. The Universe might implode or summat.

I've successfully assembled and trouble shot four other vero builds. I've never had this kind of trouble before, ever.

[induction]

Post pictures and voltages. Without that, there's not much we can do.

[Lee Oswald]

Thanks for the assistance and offers of assistance. I figured it out. I think I broke my mind in doing so, but I finally realized that the grounds on the top and bottom needed to be jumpered. I had ground from the 9V jack going to the top and the volume 1 lug grounding to the bottom of the board. I pulled volume lug 1 and ran it to the input ground, and jumpered the bottom ground connection to top connection and there it was. Now the pedal works like a buttered midget on a hot playground slide.

If I keep this up, one day I can hope to be a little less ignorant about all of this stuff.

[Lazy Swamis]