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So I built this Bazz Fuss (I know right) from culture jam (?) and the led goes on but there is no bypass at all. I socketed one of the transistors to see which one I liked best and while testing I put an orange led in the sockets and it blew, could that have effected the whole circuit? Here is a pic. Normally I'd trouble shoot, but I really just want an answer right now. This first one is for me and I'm making another as a gift, so I'd like to do all of my "trouble shooting" on this one so I don't fuck up the gift one.

On the bright side, I think my wiring is much better here than on my last build, although there are significantly less wires, the ones that are there look nice and neat. And blue and green, very nice.

The4455 wrote:I put an orange led in the sockets and it blew, could that have effected the whole circuit?

no. resistors, capacitors and transistors all have max voltage and wattage ratings higher than your power supply. I see lots of cloudy black marks on the PCB possibly from a longer dwell time on the pads or maybe your iron came in contact with the soldermask? you should look closely on both sides of the board for lifted or cut traces. those footswitches do not like heat. soldering a PCB to a footswitch is actually more difficult on a cheap soldering iron than it would be without the PCB. the PCB can act like a heatsink while slowly bringing the footswitch up to fail temp before the terminals are even hot enough to melt solder. without a desolder braid or solder sucker, saving that board for a new footswitch would be very difficult. it goes without saying that if the footswitch has failed, you will need a new one. you can buy high temp footswitches. but you could also buy a better soldering iron. culturejam makes great PCB's but I'm kinda thinking that if I ever wanted to do a point to point pedal (no PCB), bass fuzz would be my first choice. did you check the footswitch with a meter to see if it still works?

You used an orange led as the diode and it blew? Because that shouldn't be able to happen, but it could mean +9V shorted on the collector of the transistor.

And the circuit probably won't work without the diode, so if the LED blew and you didn't replace it... there ya go. But you need to figure out why it blew first.

McSpunckle wrote:You used an orange led as the diode and it blew? Because that shouldn't be able to happen, but it could mean +9V shorted on the collector of the transistor.

And the circuit probably won't work without the diode, so if the LED blew and you didn't replace it... there ya go. But you need to figure out why it blew first.

he made a good point. LED connected to V+ and ground directly will kill it instantly. even so, most fuzz circuits have a collector resistor or emitter resistor 2k or more somewhere. its possible if your fuzz circuit has a 1k collector resistor and that could still kill an LED in circuit.

Thanks, but is the wiring of the jacks and etc. okay? The on/off led still turns on when the switch is turned on/off so I am assuming that the switch still works.

Could I "dry fit" the pcb into the switch to test it and then solder it?

eatyourguitar wrote:

McSpunckle wrote:You used an orange led as the diode and it blew? Because that shouldn't be able to happen, but it could mean +9V shorted on the collector of the transistor.

And the circuit probably won't work without the diode, so if the LED blew and you didn't replace it... there ya go. But you need to figure out why it blew first.

he made a good point. LED connected to V+ and ground directly will kill it instantly. even so, most fuzz circuits have a collector resistor or emitter resistor 2k or more somewhere. its possible if your fuzz circuit has a 1k collector resistor and that could still kill an LED in circuit.

I was thinking maybe a strand of the wire for the power got to the other side of the collector resistor. That's the only way I can think of that the LED would have blown like that.

The4455 wrote:Thanks, but is the wiring of the jacks and etc. okay? The on/off led still turns on when the switch is turned on/off so I am assuming that the switch still works.

Could I "dry fit" the pcb into the switch to test it and then solder it?

Triple pole switches are really 3 independent switches, so one of the poles could go out, letting the LED work and not the circuit. You could possibly dry-fit it if the switch fits in pretty tight, but otherwise you'll really need to solder it. And even if it fits tight, it'll probably be noisy and work intermittently.

I was actually assuming you'd had it working, and something went bad. But I guess it never worked? I'd need to see the other side of the board (and maybe a link to info about the board) to tell if you wired anything wrong.

it also looks like the pieces of the jacks inside the case are really close to the pcb. particularly the one on the right in the photo.when you put a cable in it will bend even further/closer to the board. if none of the other suggestions bear fruit then i would look into whether or not its hitting anything.

Here are a few pictures and the build doc:

D2 isn't the diode you want to socket. D1 is. If you put the orange LED on D2, that's why it blew. That diode is there for reverse polarity protection. So, that LED blowing might not have anything to do with why the circuit isn't working.

The output jack is wired backwards. I can't tell about the input. It looks like the signal goes to the right place, and the board ground goes to the little thing that shorts when unplugged, which is useless but shouldn't hurt anything.

So just switch the wires on the output then?

The4455 wrote:So just switch the wires on the output then?

Yeah. Then I expect it'll work. Or at least bypass...

wires reversed on an output jack means your output tip is grounded through the case. thats how a mute works.

McSpunckle wrote:

The4455 wrote:So just switch the wires on the output then?

Yeah. Then I expect it'll work. Or at least bypass...

Oh yea of little faith, it shall work!

So i switched the wires and then it bypassed and I switched the diode, but it still doesn't work. I have another one ready to go, I'll wire that one up and see if it works.

I think I'm going to give up on this one, I don't think it's worth it at this point, I learned a $10 maybe $12 lesson today, do things by the book (instructions).

When you say you switched the diode, did you socket D1 this time? The circuit probably won't work if that diode is backwards.

You'll learn way more figuring you what's wrong with a pedal that doesn't work then following instructions.