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PM me, I'll mail you the resistor. NC

I see what I did, I combined my 430k with my 430R. Gonna swap that out right now. I'll also reflow the solder on R29, that top pad does look dodgy.

Edit: SUCCESS!!! It was that darned R7. According to a local builder buddy of mine, I did the same swap on my first Klon build because he fixed it for me. Looks like it was the fault of my organization and failing to test my components before installing. Lesson learned. Thanks, guys!

**EDIT: I checked R7 coming off Pin 7 of IC1, and I've got a 430k instead of 422k. I couldn't find any 422k resistors but still had 430ks, so I used that instead. Is that enough of a difference to cause the problem? Back to checking...

Yeah, there may be a few dodgy solder joints from what I can make out in those photos.  R13 stands out from here.

But what are the color bands on your R7.  A Four-band 430K resistor should be yellow-orange-yellow-gold.  That third band looks like it might be brown for 430R instead of K.

That would explain the gain pot issue, but it wouldn't explain the weird voltage on IC1 pin3.  i would suggest reflowing the solder on that pin.  Can't tell if it's bad, but it's one of the few things that could explain an out-of-place voltage.  I checked all the resistors in that part of the circuit and they looked good.

Reflowing solder joints is no problem, I'll give it a full examination on that.

You're right about R7, it's 430R currently. What the heck did I do? I pulled it from a bag labeled 430k, unless it's mislabeled. Ugh! I'll have to hit the electronics surplus store next week and try swapping that piece out. Thanks, I'll update next week.

The ground wiring was the problem! Between the LED, the DC jack and the switch, I had all kinds of craziness, actually. Thanks! Works great! Now I just need to get this Sunking 2 working...

Thanks, Brian. I wasn't getting *any* sound through the pedal, so I think I had the grounding all mashed up. Currently I have the LED wired just to the board, so I'll try changing the connection of the LED ground to the switch.

For clarification: the noise I was getting was grounding noise, hopefully making this wiring shift will fix it. I guess i should just leave that second ground pad next to the LED pad empty??

I'm having issues wiring up my Zero Point Mini. Compared to the Hipster I built (which still doesn't work right for reasons unknown), it's confounding me. There's no wiring diagram in the build doc, nor is there a similar setup of pads that indicate where each line is supposed to go like on the Hipster. I tried using madbean's old 3PDT wiring diagram, but the result is noise, noise, noise. I figure my grounding wiring is incorrect, but again, I'm not really sure where everything supposed to go. What should the wiring be? Thanks!

I checked Pin 3 again, still low. No idea why, you guys would know better than me. Would I address that by checking the values of the parts coming into it?

**EDIT: I checked R7 coming off Pin 7 of IC1, and I've got a 430k instead of 422k. I couldn't find any 422k resistors but still had 430ks, so I used that instead. Is that enough of a difference to cause the problem? Back to checking...

Pics...

Are you using PCB-mount pots or solder lug pots?  If solder lug I'd suggest maybe you miswired them, but if you're using PCB-mount pots that's highly unlikely.

I'm guessing it's an incorrect component value, but it could be a bad solder joint or even a short.  Post some good photos of both sides of your board so we can check those out.

And, unless you know all your voltages are right, go ahead and put up your IC pin voltages, too.  Good luck!

Okay, finally had a chance to test my values. I triple-checked my solder points, everything's clean. Still getting signal through it, but there's still the *very* slight decrease in volume when I turn up the gain knob.

(I wish I understood the math of all this.)

IC1:
1=4.67
2=4.67
3=1.19
4=0.00
5=4.64
6=4.67
7=4.67
8=9.24

IC2:
1=4.70
2=4.67
3=4.61
4=-9.02
5=4.62
6=4.67
7=4.65
8=17.85

IC3:
1=9.24
2=5.31
3=0.00
4=-3.83
5=-9.02
6=4.47
7=4.34
8=9.24

I solved my first issue of no signal when the pedal is engaged, swapped out IC3 for that fix. (I actually found a whole bag of IC's still sealed in electrostatic bags, I think I killed the first ICs I put into this build which is why it wasn't working.)

Now my issue is the gain pot doesn't increase gain. Instead there's a slight decrease in volume, not really like compression I don't think, but still not correct. Tone and Volume work perfectly & cleanly. I'm still completely ignorant when it comes to the math of these builds, so be gentle.    Any ideas? Thanks in advance, you geniuses!

EDIT: I did true-bypass wiring as well as the Thick & Fat & Clip switchable mods.

[either]

Glad folks were able to help you out with the ground issue. As far as it not sounding that strong, I would double-check you don't have one or both of your transistors oriented the wrong way. Some fuzzes just won't work if that happens, but others will work but just be quite weak. If you're looking directly at the flat side of the silkscreened transistor image on the PCB, the emitter tab on your BC109 should be on the left side.

Let us know how it works!

I went over the transistors quite diligently as I was trying to figure out the physical pinout order in relation to its schematic layout. I'm pretty sure I get that part now, but I'm still not getting the desired result. You'd think for such a simple circuit I wouldn't be having so many challenges. I also have to shelve that one for a bit as a friend of mine who fell in love with my v1 Sunking build asked me to build him one, so I just finished a v2 Sunking and it's not working either.  I think it might be related to the ICs, but not sure. That'll be another post looking for help if I exhaust my self-troubleshooting resources.

I did read that section from the tech help guide, but it was the extra info you provided that I needd. Thanks! Hoping to have a bit of time tomorrow to work with it, we'll see. I'll post results if I'm able.

That certainly makes sense. Decided to be brave and box it so I could determine what's what. (For the future, I'm going to build a Beavis Audio-style prototyping/troubleshooting board so I can test in a more fool-proof fashion.) AND IT WORKS! No hum. However, the sound isn't quite correct. It's not ballsy at all. I know the FF isn't supposed to be a massively huge-sounding pedal, but it's really mild. I  have to dime the volume knob & the fuzz knob doesn't really help matters much.

I'm not exactly sure how to bias it other than it's done via the trim pot and the Bias pad that's offshooting from Q2, so I'm guessing I run power through it and place one of my DMM probes on the Bias pad; the question is, which probe, and where do I place the other probe? While much of my building knowledge has come back, biasing is something I've never done before.

In the meantime, I'll post some values again when I'm able, hopefully later today. I'm running out of time to finish this puppy before my gig. Thanks for helping a brother out, all!

hmm, this does sound strange.
As Jon said, voltages will help. Also, post some pics of your build. To me it kind of sounds like a problem with your voltage supply. getting weird noises when the pedal is off OR on could support that
Did you check for continuity between ground and DC and did you make sure you wired your DC jack, as well as in- and outputs correctly (grounded via case...)

I didn't ground via case, because the rule is to rock it before you box it. Maybe I'm rocking it pre-boxing it wrong...? I just have the circuit out in the open, and I'm feeling a bit foolish because maybe that's the trick. I don't have any ground occurring except for that coming from the power supply.

For the purpose of further clarification, the noise is essentially really wicked ground hum. Like, DISGUSTINGLY AWFUL. Very consistent, though.

FIRST ERROR: I confused the transistors, and they both appear to be working as intended. Having mentally corrected that, I'm also remembering how to do troubleshooting steps, and I'm finding a very interesting issue.

First, FWIW, here are my board values...

9V in @ board: 9.45V
Ground in @ board: 0.00
Q1: Pin1= 0.00 Pin2= 0.59 Pin3= 2.45
Q2: Pin1= 1.78 Pin2= 2.45 Pin 3=4.51

I honestly don't know what any of that actually means other than it's voltage, I'm just a player who really like building & assembling stuff.

I remembered that I made an audio probe a few years ago. Whipped that out, downloaded a tone generator to my iPad, and began testing. Everything appears to be absolutely fine and perfect until I actually plug a cable into the output jack. That's where everything goes out the window. If I touch the audio probe to the tip of the output jack, I get the sound I'd anticipate (although I discovered I used the wrong Alpha 9mm's, so my pots are backwards). However, something about the cable is what's overriding everything and creating the noise. It's probably something hyper obvious, but help a brother out! =D

So the ground loop issue was because it wasn't grounded. It's a tiny enough build, putting it in the box wasn't a big deal. The issue now is it's not sounding like a fuzz should. Borrowed a friend's fuzz in the meantime for this gig, but I still want to finish this one for myself. I'll post values whenever I get the chance. Thanks.

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