This was my attempt at building the 13 Watt Overdrive designed at
MakeZine.com
I designed the housing ages ago using a junction box that can be
found for a couple of dollars at any hardware store.
I started by drilling all the holes in the junction box, careful not to
pop out the "slugs," for the jacks, LED and push-button switch.
Using the schematic from Make, I put the circuit together, wired the
jacks and switch for true-bipass, and carefully crammed everything
into the housing.
When it came time to plug in my guitar, I got nothing — no overdrive,
no hum, no static — nothing . When I stepped on the switch, which
shuts off the pedal, I was able to get sound from my amp, which
basically means I wired the bipass correctly, but the pedal was a lemon.
It seem like a simple circuit, so I pulled out a magnifying glass and
went over all of the solder points to make sure there wasn't a short
or bad connection. Everything looked okay, but obviously, there was
something wrong.
I thought it could have been the switch setup, so I rewired in every
possible combination, but still no luck. I guess it's also possible that
there is an issue with resistor values with the transistor, but I'm
guessing I would have got some sound. Another clue was LED: it
wouldn't light up, but it could be another issue completely seperate
from the circuit.
I'm guessing it was one of the following:
1) I was using a transistor that didn't "agree" with the circuit.
2) I didn't following the schematic properly
I decided to try designing one of the other pedals, the Florescent Fuzz.
It uses fewer components and the circuit design is slightly easier to
build. But instead of soldering it together, I put it together on a
breadboard. After putting it together, wiring the switch and the input
and output jacks, the outcome was the same: nothing.
I have no idea what the problem is, so it's back to work.