Jumper Soldering Workaround?

[sstorey]

I’m all done with the build except for the fact that I can’t get the jumpers to take solder between them – there’s just one solder bead on each pad. I tried with a screwdriver tip iron to try to get both pads to temperature at the same time, but no luck. As you can imagine, I’m pretty bummed to be stuck at this stage. Is there another way of doing this or do you have any suggestions to get around this issue? Thanks!

[brach]

I’m sorry, that’s got to be frustrating.
It can be kind of tricky the first time you try soldering these jumpers. Try using more solder and quickly rubbing the tip of the soldering iron across both pads until they stick together. You’re basically scraping across the surface of the PCB very lightly and quickly while you add more solder.
You can always just use a very short piece of wire too, like a lead that you cut off a resistor earlier, to jump between them. Use a very short length (about 1/8″ max), hold it with some tweezers as you bridge the jumpers.
Sorry for the frustration, and good luck.
-Brach

[sstorey]

Hi Brach:

Thanks very much for the very comprehensive reply. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it work and it looks like I may have burned the pads. I’d enclose a pic but I’m not sure where to host images publicly. Have I irretrievably ruined my new pedal before I even get a chance to hear it or is there some magic trick that you might know of?

Thanks again,
Scott

[sstorey]

… 30 seconds of Googling later:

[sstorey]

Hopefully here’s a less broken link to the pic.

[brach]

Thanks for the picture. The pads don’t look burned to me…they still have solder on them.
What kind of solder are you using anyway? That could have a lot to do with your trouble. Also, is your iron tip non-oxidized and clean? Is it properly tinned? That would also contribute to this issue.
Have you tried the wire across the pads idea yet? If it makes it easier, you can just run a wire from the TP pad all the way to the top solder jumper….connecting all 3 pads in line. It might help to hold the wire down with tweezers as you solder it.
This is the first time we’ve heard about someone having trouble with the solder jumpers, so it makes me wonder if it may be your solder type.
I’m sorry for your frustration.
Please keep me posted.
-Brach

[sstorey]

Thanks very much for the thorough answer. I’m embarrassed to say that I’d managed to misread the instructions and was trying to bridge each of the two sets of jumpers instead of each individual set of pads. Bad news is that I completely burnt off the pads trying to fix it, so I scraped down to the traces and used a conductive pen to bridge the gap. Works great now and I can’t tell you how happy I am with the way this pedal sounds. Absolutely amazing – I immediately spent an hour messing around with the settings. Can’t wait to build your next creation!

Thanks again for all your help.

-Scott

[brach]

That’s good to hear that you got it working! Another person contacted us about the pedal not having a “tremolo” sound and it turned out that they did the same thing. It makes me wonder if our instructions could be improved.
Anyway, have fun with your new pedal!
-Brach

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