Tycobrahe Octavia Tonepad build....HUM!!

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Frostbite Slim
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Post by Frostbite Slim »

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Recently build this octavia following the layout at Tonepad to the "T" . The pedal works, but picks up hum when my strat is on the neck, middle or bridge pickups. Postions 2 & 4 are nice and quite. What could be going on? Tried the sheilded cable on the Input with no results.

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Nocentelli
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Post by Nocentelli »

A working effect with audible hum often indicates a grounding fault: Check the continuity of the grounding scheme with a multimeter, i.e. make sure ground connections to in, out and power jacks, battery negative and circuit ground are actually connected.


On the other hand, strat single coil pick-ups on their own do tend to hum a bit anyway: the parallel neck||middle and middle||bridge cancel this hum, as do humbucking (series coil) pick-ups. Is the hum significantly worse than when using single coils through, for example, a medium gain fuzz/OD/distortion?
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Frostbite Slim
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Post by Frostbite Slim »

Thanks Nocentelli. It's driving me crazy cuz everything is checking out good so far. Maybe a bad transformer?

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Frostbite Slim
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Post by Frostbite Slim »

Could it be a ground loop...hmmm

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Nocentelli
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Post by Nocentelli »

Nocentelli wrote:Check the continuity of the grounding scheme with a multimeter
It's always worthwhile debugging with a battery rather than a PSU, just to remove another uncertainty from the process (I see a PP3 clip there, so I assume this is possible). Also check all the circuit contacts to ground are good.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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DrNomis
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Post by DrNomis »

For what it's worth, my Fender Mexican Standard Stratocaster has three standard single-coil pickups fitted, and I get hum in the neck,middle,and bridge positions too, when I select the neck + middle, or bridge + middle positions, I do notice that the hum is significantly lower, I've noticed this issue with every strat-style guitar fitted with 3 single-coil pickups that I've played, cheapies and expensive ones, so I think that unless there's something wrong with the circuit-grounding in your Octavia build, the hum is being caused by the pickups in your guitar, to confirm this, try turning-down the volume control of your guitar while it's set to either the neck,middle, or bridge pickup, and listen to the hum, does it go away when you reduce the volume to zero?, if it does then the hum is caused by the pickups picking-up/sensing the varying magnetic-field from the mains wiring where you are.... :thumbsup

Incidentally, I'm using a 42 Inch Plasma Screen TV as a monitor for my PC as I'm typing this, it has a screen refresh-rate of 600Hz and my Strat has a really bad habit of picking it up whenever I select the neck,middle, or bridge pickup, especially when I'm using a distortion pedal, drives me nuts, but I'm planning on replacing the pickups with three single-coil sized humbuckers, maybe some Seymour Duncans, in order to get rid of the hum, I find that single-coils are a bit too bright for me anyway, so I don't mind losing a bit of high end, that could be one solution to your hum issue.... :thumbsup
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Frostbite Slim
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Post by Frostbite Slim »

It's definetly a louder hum than I expect even from using single coils. Can anyone recommend someone who I can send it to for repair?

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DrNomis
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Post by DrNomis »

Frostbite Slim wrote:It's definetly a louder hum than I expect even from using single coils. Can anyone recommend someone who I can send it to for repair?
Not off the top of my head, but maybe some other member might be able to recommend someone who could possibly have a look at it, have you tried turning down the volume control to zero and seeing if that gets rid of the hum?, if so, does the hum come back when you turn the volume on your guitar up again?..... :hmmm:
Genius is not all about 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration - sometimes the solution is staring you right in the face.-Frequencycentral.

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Frostbite Slim
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Post by Frostbite Slim »

***Update***

Can't really explain it, but I rehoused the Octavia in another enclosure and the Hum level dropped dramatically! Perhaps it had something to do with the previous enclosure having a Metallic paint...who knows, but now the hum is much more bearable.

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Post by andershenrik »

On newer strat type guitars the middle pickup is reversed magnete polarity ,and reversed winding. wich when conected to the bridge or neck pickup will form a humbugger with less hum . kind regards to all

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