JNewby wrote:I built a circuit and although it's powered and all cables tested ok, it is still not sounding the way it should. There is no sound, noise or noisy sounds. I have checked the board by eye but didn't find anything wrong. What now? Help, help!
- Take an audio amplifier and turn down the volume (IMPORTANT!).
- Attach an aligator clip to the shield (ground) lug of a female jack, with a long enough wire.
- Attach a 0.1uF/50V (or about that value) capacitor to the tip (signal) lug of the female jack, with a long enough wire. The capacitor is there to block the direct current going through your amp input.
- Connect the alligator clip to the ground of the circuit to be probed.
- Connect the female jack to the amplifier's input with a normal guitar cable.
- Turn up the amplifier's volume as needed.
- You can now probe the circuit either by using the free leg of the capacitor as a test probe or by attaching a proper test probe to the said free leg.
STEP 1: Bypass mode
Now connect the capacitor lead/test probe to the input of the circuit. This way you should be able to hear your guitar coming out of the speaker, because the circuit bypasses the circuit through the alligator clip. If you still hear nothing, there is a problem in the guitar, amp or alligator clips, but you can still make no conclusions about the circuit.
Fix this first. When you hear a clean signal, you can proceed to step two.
STEP 2: Start probing
Take the correct schematic, look for the input and now connect the capacitor lead/test probe to circuit after the first component. The sound level may be a bit lower (with resistor) or different (with capacitor) but you should be able to hear your guitar sound coming through. If you do, the circuit is ok up until that point.
STEP 3: Tracing the signal path
From here on follow the signal path through the circuit all the way to the output. Always use the shortest path through the active devices (transistors, ICs). There is no use in probing the 9V rail, but you will quickly learn how 'ground' sounds.
STEP 4: Find the problem
As you probe across the circuit, you will encounter a location where the sounds dissapears or does not sound good anymore. If you do, check the surrounding components and connections carefully for mistakes, backwards connected caps or diodes.
References on how to build a permanent audio probe
http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/audioprb.gif
http://www.diyguitarist.com/PDF_Files/D ... Tester.pdf
https://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/debug.html
http://diy-fever.com/misc/audio-probe/
http://www.doitfuzz.com/forum/diy_tutor ... DIY_pedals
https://www.coda-effects.com/2015/07/tr ... uitar.html