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Madbean Zero Point SDX not working as it should

Started by Battery Acid, November 16, 2013, 10:58:08 PM

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Battery Acid

Complicate it doesn't make it wrong

Battery Acid

Well, fuck it. I'll "just" give up. I tried everything, new diodes, checked every damn resistor value, checked for unwanted solder bridges, changed the pot taper, and it still acting like a silly reverb. I'll record a video just for the hell of it, but I give up
Complicate it doesn't make it wrong

Battery Acid

Well, here it is



In the video I tweak both Delay and Feedback knobs. It kinda sucks, because I already drilled and finished an enclosure, heh.
Complicate it doesn't make it wrong

kothoma

Hm, isn't that the GHOST switch what you can hear?

Battery Acid

It's off in the video. When it's on, it just oscilates like crazy and faster
Complicate it doesn't make it wrong

pietro_moog

oh come on, you can solve this, no negative thinking! do this:
take the path mod off, take the modulation off and remove the ic, set the deep mode and remove the ic.
basically you removed half the circuit. now set mix at zero, do you have normal signal? good.
so you are left with just a 1/4 of the circuit. do you have a log pot for feedback? good.
now: can you read the schematic? just visual check your caps on the second part of the pt2399, i mean like the 2n2 caps going from pin 16 to pin 15 on the others. do you understand? then, did you check the pt2399s with some other circuit? or do you have some other pt2399 to try? if they are good your prom lies in the first prat of the pt2399s circuit. i mean the stuff attached to pin 1 to 8. most of them are capacitors, so you can visual-check.
are they good? then are the transistors working? check the resistors around them. are the values good?
check r48, which is the one that limits the delay time.

ps. i assumed you are not a mood and you have a multimeter, right?

Battery Acid

Well, I'll take some rest before I try to mess again with this little mofo. Thanks for the tips! I do know how to read an schematic, I just don't know much about what does what in a delay pedal, guess is time to learn something new. I've already checked the capacitor and resistor values more than once, but I can do it again. I have tryied all my PT2399's in my Deep Blue Delay clone, and they all work (and I have a bunch, hehe). Think I'll have to try the transistors, will remove them all and put sockets in there. And I removed R45, but have to check R48. And yes, I have a multimeter, hehehe. I'm not exactly new in the pedal making business, and that's why I'm so frustrated hahaha.

and thanks very much for the tips, I'll give it a go and report back
Complicate it doesn't make it wrong

Battery Acid

Tonight I had the funniest dream! Madbean himself chimed it here and told me to look at the value of resistor x, and in the dream I took that resistor out and swaped for another, and it just happened to be an out of spec component, turned the pedal on and it was working! Dang, it was just a dream...

I woke up and started messing with the pedal. Started looking the things pietro_moog pointed out (thank you very much, by the way!). Swaped some capacitors I accidentally damaged with my soldering iron, checked all capacitor values, removed the transistors and installed new ones, now socketed, measured R48 with the multimeter, changed all the ic's - including new tested and working pt2399. Removed everything that didn't belong to the delay path, but once again, no dice. I plugged in my Deep Blue Delay just to be sure I'm not crazy and somehow forgot how a delay sounds, but yeah, it really doesn't work as it should. I know Brian is a pretty busy guy, but would be kinda nice of him to point were I should be looking at with more attention. I buy boards from madbean since the first klon board, there wasn't even a website at that point
Complicate it doesn't make it wrong