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Well that’s good news! There was a small chance of something like that happening, so good job finding it. I’m glad I was able to help you. It’s fun to practice my troubleshooting skills. And troubleshooting remotely helps keep my skills sharp!
Anyway, enjoy your Quaverato!
-BrachSterlingLl,
Thank you for letting us know about this, and i’m sorry for any anxiety this has given you. To answer your question, no, this is not a big deal and you don’t need to order new resistors. The fact is, this could simply be an issue with your meter or probes (i’m not saying your meter isn’t good), or even more likely, the how the measurement was done. If the solder joint has flux on the surface of it, most of the time the resistance readings will be high. The sharp point on the probe is good for digging into the solder a bit to get past the flux layer. But it is just as likely that the resistors are, in fact, out of spec…especially if all the other resistors measured good. We get them from a large supplier overseas, so it is very possible they sent us some resistors that was pushed through the QC process. Fortunately, in this case it’s exact tolerance isn’t important. In the manual, I said that to make sure all the resistors were in the correct range….i should have probably worded it differently. Sorry for the confusion and needless worry.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up about this.
Enjoy your Quaverato!
Take care.
-BrachGood job! Now we can be (mostly) sure that your pot is not working correctly. Once you remove it, just double check the resistance (from the center lug to one of the side lugs) as you turn it. Technically, there still is a very small possibility that there is a short on the center lug from some other 5 volt point, but practically we have enough information to warrant you removing the pot from the board. Once you do this final test on the removed pot and find out that it’s bad, email us at info “at” zeppelindesignlabs “dot” com and give us your address and serial number so we can send you a new part.
-BrachThank you for making that check. You may very well be right about the pot…But i do think you need to take the microcontroller out and test it again without it in the circuit. What if the microcontroller has an internal short or partial short to ground?…you could get the same test result. Testing components in a circuit can be kind of tricky because you have to consider everything else that is attached to that circuit node. The microcontroller pins are supposed to be high impedance (over 1M) but it is possible for each pin’s internal resistor to become damaged. I’m sorry I mislead you in my previous directions, I forgot about this contingency. And sorry to have you keep working on this, but it’s important to get an accurate diagnosis.
Let me know what you find.
-BrachPoorness,
Good troubleshooting!
You possibly have a bad pot, but there’s also a good chance that the problem is something else, like the microcontroller is injecting 5V on the pot…you just don’t notice it until there is enough resistance on the pot to hold it above ground level.
Test the pot by measuring the resistance of the microcontroller’s pin 24 to ground, when the pedal power is off. It should scale from around 0 ohms to around 100k ohms as you turn it. If it’s is stuck at some high value for most of the rotation then the pot’s bad.
If the pot’s good then remove the microcontroller from it’s socket (very carefully, without bending it’s pins) and power up the pedal…then measure the voltage on pin 24 again as you rotate the rate pot. Test to see if the voltage is scaling as you rotate it. If this works, then the problem is with the microcontroller…or there’s somehow a short between pin 24 and 5V.
Let me know what you find.
-BrachPoorness,
I know it’s frustrating to get done with a pedal and discover that one thing isn’t working right. Sorry for your frustration.
You said that the tap time is working, correct? If the tap footswitch is working correctly then the issue probably is on the analog side of things…meaning an issue with the voltage getting from the rate pot to the microcontroller. On the schematic you can see that the center lug of the rate pot (VR2) is going to pin 24 of the microcontroller. So test that with your continuity tester (with the pedal’s power off). Test it with the meter probe on pin 24 right as it exits the microcontroller’s body, not the solder joint because there could be an issue with socket. If that’s good then power the pedal on and measure the voltage on that pin as you rotate the rate knob. The DC voltage should scale from around 0 volts to around 5 volts as you rotate the knob. If you have trouble with these tests check the solder joints around pin 24 for shorts or opens. You can also test that the left and right rate pot pins are connected to ground and the 5V rail.
Do these tests and let me know what you find.
-BrachAllan,
I’m glad the first issue was so easy to fix.
If the tonality of the pedal is changing over time the only thing i can think of is that it might be a solder joint issue. As in, the signal is being hindered by some bad connection somewhere…and somehow it’s getting worse over time. You can always try to wiggle components with your finger as you play through the pedal to see if you notice the tone changing.
It’s a weird problem that i haven’t seen before. I hate to ask this, but are you sure it’s not your perception or ear fatigue? To test this, you could try to record a riff on your phone when the tone is set the way you like, and then record the same riff again after you play through the pedal for a few hours. That would give you more of an objective opinion about what’s happening.
That’s all i know to say about this issue at this point in time. Let me know if you try re-soldering things or try the recording test.
Good luck.
-BrachAllan,
First of all, are the jumpers soldered properly?
If so, try to test to see if the volume pot is connected properly on the PCB. To do this see if you have continuity between one of the side pins of the pot (the one on the left, depending on how the board is turned) and ground; test to see if the other side pin is connected to one of the pins of C4; then (while the pedal is engaged, ie the red light is ON beside the bypass switch) test to see if the center pin is connected to the output jack tip (or better yet, one of the pins of the relay closest to the edge of the board). For more details look a the schematic in the back of the manual. If all these are making connection then then the volume pot is connected properly and the issue is something else, so start working through the troubleshooting guide.
Let me know what you find.
-BrachThe Quaverato should work with any device that sends MIDI messages, but it doesn’t work with expression controllers. The VPM-1, our volume/expression mod for the Ernie Ball Jr pedal, is not a MIDI pedal…it’s only capable of sending expression voltages, so it wouldn’t work with the Quaverato without an expression voltage-to-MIDI converter.
In the lab, we used the Behringer FCB1010 to test and design the Quaverto, as well as the Disaster Area DMC-3XL (which also can convert expression voltages to MIDI). So I know those 2 controllers work, but basically anything that can send MIDI messages can control the Quaverato.
-BrachI’m pretty confused by your question.
Look at this video (specifically look at the video from 2:20 to about 2:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnvNSf8KHvo
How is your bypass switch behaving differently than the one in the video?
-BrachSomething is wrong about your power supply. Please measure the voltage across the power supply jack to make sure it is really 9V and not 12V.
On the original power supply you were using (the 9V, 1000mA supply), is the jack polarity correct (positive on the sleeve, negative on the tip)?
Generally, all the intermittent issues (of the pedal not working at all, and then not passing signal…etc) are probably related to bad solder joints. It might help if I could see some detailed, in focus, pictures of both sides of your circuit board. Try to bend the pots up some to capture the solder joints under the pots. If i could see the your solder joints and build quality, I could probably offer some better suggestions as to what direction to lean toward in troubleshooting.
-Brach
