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Neither of mine tick in most settings.

My tap tempo cardinal does tick in certain settings: square wave in harmonic mode. Which kind of sounds like crap anyway, so I never use that setting.

Re-check the pin count ... you'd need to create a project specifically to use this chip.

It's a bypass cap for high frequencies. It's in the audio path, and it's typically only needed if you're getting oscillation or really want to remove some treble. You shouldn't need it if you're using germanium transistors. I'd leave it off and if you need it, try the 20pF. But small changes to that cap can have a big effect.

Another easy thing that ... this is actually how I do the comp knob on mine now.

Remove the 1K from the emitter of Q2 to ground.

Remove the 47uF between the 47R and the comp pot. Connect the comp pot directly to the 47R (just add a little jumper if that's easier). This should give you more "less" range.

Originally I had the gain pot set up that way because I was worried about scratching feeding back into the audio signal somehow. It was unfounded. This change will probably be on the next PCB run, but I haven't gotten around to updating my perf layout after I confirmed it in a couple working builds.

Passive splitters seriously suck. Just ... don't do it.

Yay! Are the April 15th boards still on target? The lack of Wieners is the only thing keeping me from hitting "buy" for the last week.

George L's are great for tight spots on pedal boards, and they're a 30 second fix when they break (cut the end flush with some wire cutters, stick it back in the cable end, and screw it down). The drawback is that they are more likely to break if you or someone you know is a little wild on stage. I've broken them probably twice; other people have broken them for me twice as well. The George L's actually do have much lower capacitance per foot than pretty much anything else, which really only matters before you get to a buffered signal, and you can use anything after that point.

I still would use them when wiring up a pedal board. You can cut the wire lengths EXACTLY, and they take up almost no space, and then you won't damage the wires trying to bend them into weird angles. So they are absolutely worth it for me on that score.

This came out really well, though personally I'd go with slightly smaller knobs.

Where are the other grounds?

"Ground" is kind of a bad name for what we're talking about. A better way to think of it is "common." What are the things that must be connected all the time for the stompbox to work?

1) The sleeves of the in/out jacks (this is the shielding on the guitar cable, and the "negative" from our pickups is carried on it).
2) The enclosure, to ensure good shielding.
3) All ground points in the schematic. Not sure if something's supposed to connect to ground? Check the schematic.
4) The DC jack's (and battery's) ground connection.

The reason we typically only have to ground one in/out jack sleeve is that if we're using metal jacks and a metal enclosure, they'll be connected to each other just by both touching the enclosure.

As for the off-board wiring, it's pretty well explained in here: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/tutorials/downloads/StandardWiring_MBP.pdf

I really like the way you did that etch. Did you chisel it out of the paint by hand?

Anything left?

Nope, all gone.

5) He's now... wait for it.... Inept-une? Bad pun, I know.

Bwa haha. It was already claimed, but due to my love of bad puns, I will send you one of the other Neptune PCBs I have. PM me your address.

1) Screenshot of the 5-7 day promise.
2) Attempt to contact them through any other means -- e-mails can get lost.
3) Request a refund or a delivered product with the exact reasons you stated in this thread. Tell them they have 3 days to respond. Put it in the subject.
4) If you don't hear back, file a dispute immediately after that 3-day warning before your time is up to do so.
5) Read up on this1smine on TGP before buying anything from them. They have in the past been a trainwreck of communication.

I get that small builders get backed up, have no one else to answer e-mails, etc. etc., and I have sympathy with that but if they have so much business that they can't finish in the time they've advertised OR communicate with their customers, then they shouldn't care about losing one customer.

I don't think you've made a mistake, but we can still fix the issue if you want different performance for your build.

What's it like on compression at minimum? What kind of pickups are you using?

The highest compression setting is usually pretty nuts, and it is indeed able to get much more compression than the first version. If you want to reduce the total compression, there are a bunch of ways to do so, but the easiest are either (a) lower the collector resistor (the 2.2K) on Q2 (lowers the total gain of the envelope), or (b) raise the 47R to 220R-470R or so (if you have really hot pickups; this reduces the MAXIMUM gain of the envelope) or (c) increase the 1K that's connected to the gate of Q3 (this decreases the ultimate threshold -- try 10K or you can go even higher).

However, I'd try just turning down the compression knob and flipping the switch first.

I'm good for the scuba.  A buddy of mine just purchased a couple of HD cameras and is refining his video editing skills.  He's also a fine player.  Might be a cool project for us to do. 
Disclaimer:  it might be a couple if months before it's built and ready to demo.

That's fine! Sonds like it'll be a good video. PM me your address.