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As long as you made sure the proper resistor value is installed in R4 it will probably be fine. If you haven’t already, put the rest of the parts together and test it. See if the D# key works alright….it should.
Resistors in parallel always equal a lower value that either of the original resistors. In this case there is some internal resistance on the micro controller pin that R4 is attached to acting in parallel to to R4…causing that point to be lower to ground than 750K. I don’t have a Macchiato in front of me at the moment to compare it to, but It should be fine.Thanks for the introduction and honesty about your skill level…that’s helpful for me to know in what I can and can’t assume with your build.
The fist: Did you solder the jumpers as in the pictures in the manual?
When you hit the bypass button does the led even come on? How about the green tap led? Does that work?
Both foot switches should be connected to ground when they are pressed and open otherwise. You can test this by using your continuity tester on your multimeter (it’s the function that beeps when the meter leads are connected). With one lead of your meter touch the chassis (it should be at ground potential…put the lead tip through one of the screw holes to free up one hand) and with the other lead touch pin 3 of the micro controller (U1). Pin 3 should (only) be connected to ground when the bypass button is pressed (you should hear a beep when it is pressed). Pin 4 of the micro should only be connected to ground when the tap button is pressed. If they don’t beep when they are pressed or continually beep then check your wire soldering.
Test those things and let me know what you find.
-BrachHoward,
Upon exampaning the Quavearto circuit I think what would help this issue of being so bright when a buffer is plugged into the pedal is a resistor between pin 1 on U2 and the high pass and low pass RC filters. Attached is a picture of the PCB which indicated how to make this mod. You’ll have to use your xacto knife to cut a trace and then add a resistor between pin 1 of U2 and C2. A starting point for the resistor value should be between 1k and 10k. The larger the resistor the more immunity it should provide for the brightness effect. Please note that I haven’t had time to try this yet so this is only in theory. But if you do try it, please let me know how it works for you.
The capacitor mod I mentioned could have a starting value of 1nF….which corresponds to a LPF cutoff of around 16KHz. The value of C (in farads) is equal to 1/(2*pi*R*f), where R is the value of R2 (10K) and f is the low pass cutoff frequency you want. You can recalculate for whatever LPF cutoff you want.
-BrachCedric,
That will work. If you could send an email to info “at” zeppelindesignlabs.com and give us your name and email address then we’ll send you info on getting the pedal to us.
Just be aware that me looking at it may not change anything if I can’t get the pedal to reproduce the issues you are having.
Anyway, send us an email and we’ll be in touch.
-BrachThat’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!
-BrachCedric,
I’m sorry to hear that you are having this strange issue as well. I would really like to help you out, if you can get it to me and provide a way I can get it back to you. But I can’t promise anything because there is a good chance that other outside issues may be causing these problems. I also can’t afford to spend tons of time rebuilding the pedal completely if that is what it needs….depending on the build quality.
If you can agree to these things then please, send it in. Sorry to be so annoying, but in the past, we’ve gotten burned by my trying to be helpful in this way.
Let me know if you want to send it in, i’ll give you the details.
-BrachI’m glad to hear that it is now working.
This new problem of staying on sounds like another solder issue. I’m pretty sure just nicking the plastic with your iron wouldn’t damage the relay, unless you can see metal parts in there.
I’m assuming that the bypass LED stays on too….is this true?
…if so, you need to very closely check the solder joints around the switch (on both sides of the board). Use your continuity tester to make sure the square pad of the bypass switch is not connected to ground when the switch is not pressed (it should be connected to ground when it is pressed).
Let me know what you find.
Good luck.
-BrachThanks for the pictures. They were very helpful.
The problem is with the jumpers. Please pay close attention to the instructions and pictures of the jumpers in the assembly manual.
You are supposed to only connect the 2 tiny pads together on each left and right side, but you have connected all 4 pads together with a wire. Please remove the wire you installed on both the high and low signal paths.
That will probably fix the no tremolo issue.
Good luck.
-BrachThanks 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.
-BrachThis sounds like a bad solder joint somewhere. Did you have to re-flow any solder joints to get the the test points to read correctly?
I’d re-flow all the solder joints on the board, especially the parts dealing with the signal path. Take your time and make sure there are no bridges anywhere. Also make sure you don’t use too much solder, which can be difficult to control and has a tendency to bridge other joints.
Good luck.
-BrachThis sounds like there is a bad connection in the signal path somewhere…possibly a short or an open somewhere. Judging from the fact that reflowing some solder joints fixed the testpoint readings, it seems likely that you probably have some other bad solder joints somewhere. I’d very carefully re-flow all the joints on the board, particularly in the signal path. Take your time with this because pads can easily get bridged.
Good luck.
-BrachI’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.
-BrachOn those test points you are measuring the LDR’s resistance with the LED on, so if you have no reading it could mean that the LED is not on, which would make the LDR’s resistance very high (practically open). So make sure your LED is actually on. Measure the voltage across it with the depth knob fully counter clockwise (it should have around 1.8v dropped across it…compare it to the LOW side LED). Make sure it’s installed correctly. (When it’s off) Use your multimeter diode checker to test if it has the same reading as the LOW side led (make sure you measure both LEDs the same way…red on square pad, black on the round pad). Make sure all the solder joints are solid and there are no opens or shorts anywhere in that circuit.
Let me know what you find.
-BrachAssuming the solder jumpers are open, when you measure across the test points, you are actually measuring the resistance of the LDR in the optocoupler. When the LED is off the resistance should be very high (practically open) and when the LED is on the resistance should be relatively low depending on how bright the LED is (which is determined by the trim pot). If the resistance won’t get above 1K then this tells me there is most likely something wrong in the optocoupler circuit. Make sure everything is installed correctly and all the solder joints are very solid (and noting is open or shorted) in that circuit. Make sure the jumpers are open too, that would really screw up your readings. It is possible that the trim pot is bad, but that is not likely. If everything else looks good then you can check your trim pot by measuring the resistance across it’s outer most pins while the power is off. You can check your readings against the LOW trim pot resistance measurements to see if they are similar.
Let me know what you find.
-Brach
