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I’m glad your build went well, but i’m sorry about the ac hum. If everything works well with your bench supply, then there must be an issue with your radio shack power supply. Try a different power supply or a battery to see how it goes. Possibly the filter cap(s) may be old/dried out in your ratio shack supply. You could check the ac ripple under load from your supply with your voltmeter.
Thanks for the suggestions. We are currently in the process of designing the Macchiato MKII which will have several improved features. I”ll take your suggestions into consideration when we make the assembly manual for it.
Thanks and good luck.
-BrachMake sure the rate pot is soldered properly…just re-flow those joints to make sure. Check the voltage on the corresponding microcontroller pin (pin # 25) to ensure voltage is getting there…it should be between 0 and 5 volts depending on how the knob is set. If all that looks good then it may be that your microcontroller fell victim to a static discharge somewhere along the way. This happens sometimes which causes the ADCs on the microcontroller to not function anymore.
-BrachMike,
I’m not sure that the noise you are experiencing is the same kind of noise as jrg320. Would you classify it as a “high pitched whine” associated with the rate knob setting, that can be minimized by lowering the depth knob?
If not, then you have an unrelated issue…how would you characterize the noise (a video might be helpful)?
No matter what kind of noise you have, it is important to make sure you followed all the steps in the assembly manual…otherwise you can end up with a broken or noisy pedal.
Pictures would help after I’ve seen video of your pedal and heard what kind of noise you are experiencing…so i know what to look for in the photos. Our forum is annoying in that you have to have a web link to post a photo. So use google drive/photos or another upload site. …actually email may be best (if the files are small enough): info “at” zeppelindesignlabs.com
-Brachjrg320,
That’s good…you’re not too far away. Feel free to send it in the mail, if you’d like, and then plan a trip to pick it up…or vice versa…drop it off at our lab and then have us send it back to you….if any of that makes it easier.
We’re here at the lab most weekdays from 7am-4pm. Let me know what works for you.
-Brachjrg320,
I’m sorry i missed your last posts…i just now found them….sorry for the delay.
I have found that the pwm can leak into the ground path via extra capacitance anywhere from that part of the circuit…meaning that you don’t have to necessarily have a physical short. For example when i press and hold the solder joints for the tap tempo led i can hear some of the pwm leak into the audio path via the capacitance of my finger. So with this in mind, make sure that the solder pads on this pwm rail don’t have excess solder on them and that the components are standing upright and not bent over close to other components or solder joints.
I’d be willing to look at for you if you can get it to me and back from me, somehow. If you live in the Chicago area you can come by the lab sometime, or you can mail it to me if you’d like. Depending on which model you have, I can possibly do some mods for you. I just want you to be able to use your Quaverato as a tremolo pedal.
Let me know.
-BrachDarryl,
If you are sure that all the solder joints are connected properly and there are no shorts anywhere, it may be that your microcontroller got damaged during assembly. This is similar to other issues I’ve seen related to the microcontroller getting damaged by static electricity, and it seems that it doesn’t take much voltage to disable or damage the internal pull-up resistor on these pins. At this point, it seems that your microcontroller thinks the tap switch is being held down most of the time. If you are able, try re-flashing the microcontroller using our software updater software. If you don’t have the means to do that, you may need to get a new microcontroller. If you need a new one, contact me off the forum we can talk about options…info “at” zeppelindesignlabs.com
I’m sorry about this trouble you are experiencing.
-BrachThats good. I hope the rest of the build goes well. Let me know if you have any more questions.
-BrachAre you using the correct manual for your version? If your board is version 8.2 then use the manual for serial numnbers 3672 and up. If you have board version 6.x use the other manual. But i’m a little confused because VR10 isn’t shown in picture 70….only VR8 and 9. And R4 and R5 aren’t mentioned in the notes for that part. Maybe try to re-download the manual to make sure you have the latest version. You may see some discrepencies in the photos, as described by the note on page 13.
Anyway, it really doesn’t matter which direction you solder in VR10; for our purposes it is non-polorized. You should still be able to adjust the gain in the same way, no matter which direction it’s facing.
Let me know about the manual you are using.
-BrachDarryl,
Sorry I haven’t responded sooner…our server seems to have been down yesterday when i was trying to log in. Sorry.
Anyway, the light blinking sequence is indicating the version of the software on the Quaverato…2.4.2. It’s supposed to enter this “software version” mode when the tap foot switch is held down upon power up. So if your Quaverato is entering this mode randomly then it seems you may have an intermittent short in your tap foot switch connection. Double check the solder joints and even the micro controller socket. When pin 4 of the micro controller is held low (to ground), it is being told the tap switch is being pressed down.
If you can’t find any shorts in the tap switch or anything else, try measuring the voltage of pin 4 to ground to see if it is low (close to 0 volts) or high (closer to 5 volts).
Let me know what you find.
-BrachMike,
Once again, sorry for the confusion and the misleading/wrong info in the user manual.
Keep playing with the trim pots. Hopefuly you’ll find a setting that works for you.
Let me know if you have anymore questions.
-BrachMike335,
I’m sorry for the confusion.
Thank you for pointing out this discrepancy between the Quaverato user manual and assembly manual.
The assembly manual is correct. The gain increases as you turn the gain trim pot counter clockwise. The tone trim pots are just the opposite, clockwise increases volume output.
These are 25-turn trim pots…so you probably won’t notice much change if you only turn it a little bit…at least with the gain trim pot. You just have to keep turning it until you hear the volume change. As you keep turning it, there will be one area that it really starts to change and you’ll notice it. You’re right, they don’t have any stops to them so once you get to the end of the pot’s 25 turns it starts making a little clicking sound as you turn it, indicating it’s not adjusting anymore.
You probably don’t need to unsolder the jumpers to reset the tone trim pots…just use your ears. It also may help to use “calibration mode” to set the tone trim pots. The gain trim pot can always be tested via test points 5 and 6, as long as the pedal is off.
Once again, sorry for the confusion.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
-BrachThis sounds like either the PWM is leaking into the signal path or the power supply is noisy. First of all, try to switch power supplies to a liner type (instead of switch-mode)…make sure it’s rated for at least 100mA. See if this helps.
If the PWM is leaking into the signal path, this can usually be helped by adjusting the high and low trim pots down in volume. Also play around with the gain trim pot to adjust the ratio of high/low trim pot volume to gain trim pot volume. This noise should decrease as you get the trim pots set in a good ratio.
Good luck.
-BrachWell, i’m glad to hear that something fixed the no noise issue. But since you don’t know what solved it, it may not actually be fixed and it may stop working again. The high pitched noise may be related to the same issue. Make sure your solder joints are very solid, fully connected and nothing is bridged. There are lots of things you could be getting this high pitched noise from. One of them is the power supply. You can try to use a battery to see if that would help, or a linear power supply (not switch mode) like the Boss PS series…basically anything with a heavy transformer in it. Another thing that could be causing the high pitched noise is the PWM signal leaking into the audio signal. Since this noise is adjustable with some controls, this is probably what it is. Hopefully cleaning up your solder joints will help with this. Lowering the volume of both the high and low signal paths may also help with this.
Keep me posted about your solder joints.
-Brach
