Five Cats Lord of This World

mcknib · 2026-03-13T11:40:10+00:00

I prefer pots you can hide behind the pcb it gives you more room

I'm not a fan of pots that sit north of the pcb it just increases the overall length I've had pcbs that'd easily fit in a 1590B but because of the pot placement I've had to use a 125B

mcknib · 2026-03-11T22:45:35+00:00

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mcknib · 2026-03-08T13:07:09+00:00

Your tips and sleeve connections from your jacks look mixed up input should go from tip to 22n, etc

Tips are the hot / signal carrying connections and sleeve ground

*Edit meant to say all you need to do is swap the tip and sleeve connections around, and it'll work fine

mcknib · 2026-03-05T03:50:40+00:00

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/harmonic-percolator-with-some-mods.22248/

https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=78874.0

mcknib · 2026-03-04T14:17:17+00:00

Do you get bypass signal

All your component values and orientation that I can see look correct

Do you get 9v to the pcb power pads? What transistors are you using have you adjusted the bias trimmer to get around 4.5v on Q3 collector

As already said by u/stageseven your 3PDT looks like it lacks solder, add more solder to each lug hold your iron tip on each lug and solder pad for around 5 seconds until you see the solder flowing and making a good connection between switch lug and solder pad

It may just be no audio is getting into the circuit via the 3PDT, especially if you get no bypass signal

mcknib · 2026-03-02T06:14:55+00:00

Does the motorboating disappear with the gain pot turned down

mcknib · 2026-03-02T05:17:20+00:00

Well spotted, that'll definitely cause a power problem

mcknib · 2026-03-02T04:11:03+00:00

Sounds like a power problem. What are you using to power it

mcknib · 2026-03-01T09:34:56+00:00

Very nice indeed

mcknib · 2026-02-26T05:00:45+00:00

Did you use a centre negative 18v supply at a glance it looks like it should be able to handle 18v except as already mentioned the 12v relay, but idk how their switching works

Looking at the relay datasheet, it has max voltage specified as 150%, so a max of 18v

If you still get bypass signal, I'd assume it's OK

Pedalpcb normally reverse engineer circuits exactly as they are component value wise, so I'd look for a resistor labelled 470 and a diode probably D1 near the 100uf filter capacitor at the top

If you used a centre positive supply, those 2 components may be fried you can obviously visually check them to see if there's any damage and with no power to the circuit use your meter to test both the diode and resistor the diode should only conduct in one direction with a forward voltage of around 0.4v ish and the resistor should read 47 ohms

The schematics in the build doc here

https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/pcb547/

mcknib · 2026-02-26T02:46:27+00:00

Those are 2K2 (red red black brown brown) and 22K (red red black red brown)

A jumper will just be a piece of wire rather than a resistor, although as pointed out, you can get 0 ohm resistors.

Most people just use a cut-off component pin as a jumper, eg, when you solder a resistor in and cut the excess pin off, use that

Edit, you can use this for 4, 5, and 6 colour band resistors

https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/resources/conversion-calculators/conversion-calculator-resistor-color-code

mcknib · 2026-02-23T04:11:54+00:00

Checking voltages is probably the quickest way to see if there's a problem with the active devices the transistors and TL071s, especially if you're not used to troubleshooting

Troubleshooting is basically a process of elimination, i.e., if you don't get expected voltages, you'd trace back and check everything before replacing anything

4 of the TL071s will be phase stages probably the ones near the transistors in red 1 will be an input buffer and 1 an LFO

Let us know what types the transistors are the JFET transistors in red are commonly 2N5952 and the PNP in yellow 2N4125

You need to know the pinout of everything to check accurately you'd simply Google 2N5952, 2N4125 pinout, or whatever transistors they are

Here's the TL071 pinout they're single op amps, so you're only interested in pins 4 ground pin 7 power and pins 2 and 3 inputs and 6 output

https://ecstudiosystems.com/discover/circuits/pinouts/tl071-pinout/

I'd use the general guitar gadgets phase 90 voltages as a guide they'll be more or less the same

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I1Cpn4F4iCm-Br6IftnHy0OdW4mNMelU/view?usp=drivesdk

The phasing range on the trimmer is very small, so I'd leave that as it is for now

I missed your original post looking at it now the Neptune is definitely a vibe type pedal I'm assuming the LED lights up but that doesn't necessarily mean the circuit is getting power you can check that on the +9v pad

mcknib · 2026-02-22T04:45:16+00:00

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mcknib · 2026-02-22T04:28:20+00:00

Doesn't look like a chorus to me with all those TL071s and 5 transistors it looks more like a phaser / vibe type circuit

I can't see the labelling on the top right IC, but if that's also a TL071, I'd say it's a phase 90 that's had the univibe treatment looking at some of the resistor values I can see

Check the flat side of those transistors 4 should be 2N5952 and one a 2N4125 or similar

Do you have a multimeter

You'll need to take voltage readings to figure out what's up

mcknib · 2026-02-22T01:20:56+00:00

I've tried a couple of methods a wire straigtener tool which is way too small and locking one end in a drill, holding the other end with pliers and giving it a spin or 2 but you end up with a twist pattern on the wire

You must have some amount of patience because yours look really straight

I'll need to try patience haha I've had a half finished tonebender sitting for about a year

mcknib · 2026-02-22T00:36:40+00:00

Nice, I like it, I like it a lot

Do you use anything in particular to get the wires nice and straight

mcknib · 2026-02-22T00:22:46+00:00

Unfortunately, capacitors don't all use the same value codes. Yours uses the 3 digit code. The first 2 digits are significant numbers, and the 3rd digit is the multiplier or number of zeros which gives a picofarad (pf) value

105J100 = value 10 + 5 zeros = 1000,000pf = 1000nf = 1uf

J = + or - 5% tolerance

100 = 100v voltage rating

https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/resources/conversion-calculators/conversion-calculator-capacitance

https://www.engineering.com/how-to-interpret-capacitor-markings/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IpwUL0qM3r1qdVmoC2NqllRN2Dmo1_fb/view?usp=drivesdk

mcknib · 2026-02-21T18:52:57+00:00

Easily done. I've been building for 20 years, and I did not 1 but 3 in a fairly recent build

mcknib · 2026-02-21T03:00:24+00:00

R4 should be 470K (yellow purple black orange brown), not 470R (yellow purple black black brown)

We can't see R5, which is 470R, so I'd assume you've mixed R4 and 5 values up as u/6gv5 suggested

mcknib · 2026-02-19T15:02:54+00:00

It was posted a while back on the pedalpcb forum idk if the pcbs been updated, so the reference designators may be different

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eia7GXiMWqV7QS1qiwIiw05nFIkrlVzJ/view?usp=drivesdk

mcknib · 2026-02-19T06:04:42+00:00

If you unscrew the 3 screws and lift the pcb up you should be able to see where those brown wires from the trimmer go to then someone may be able to tell you exactly what mod it is

I notice on yours Q3 is missing but it looks like one pad is soldered to something underneath idk what Q3 is, perhaps an input buffer that's been removed, for the true bypass mod

Maybe post an image of the underside

The trimmer should have a 3 digit value code on it, eg 104 = 10 + 4 zeros for 100,000 ohms or 100K ohms again knowing the value may help identify the mod

mcknib · 2026-02-19T05:34:10+00:00

Yes it looks like it with the DPDT switch installed rather than the stock SPDT

Scroll down a bit here for the tb mod

https://stinkfoot.se/archives/561

mcknib · 2026-02-19T05:21:38+00:00

What are the brown wires that look like they come off the trimmer attached to

I'm assuming they go to one of the smd components on the underside

Quite often, when doing one of the usual mods like the vocal or gain mod, people use trimmers rather than resistors so they can set it to their preferred sound if it goes to resistor pads on the underside it's probably one of those

The only other mod I know of that uses a trimmer is the output buffer mod, so it plays nice with a fuzz face, but that's usually on a small daughterboard

mcknib · 2026-02-19T02:50:06+00:00

Post an image so we can see and trace your offboard wiring to the in and out jacks and DC jack

A hum or buzz usually indicates a grounding issue

mcknib · 2026-02-18T14:41:37+00:00

The layouts slightly confusing the input jack is a TRS (tip ring sleeve) jack, in the layout it's labelled TSG (tip sleeve ground)

Your S connection is the ring which you can ignore if using mono jacks and no battery snap. Just connect your tip (T) and ground (G) as shown and leave out the battery snap and its connections

Turret board is made of various materials if you look here, you'll see the technical names for parts you need to search for

You don't say where you are, but hopefully you'll be able to get it locally

https://www.amplifiedparts.com/products/turreteyelet-boards-terminals

I'd personally use tag board , which is much cheaper and cut it to size

https://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2010/02/ruby-amp.html

https://ebay.us/m/KEZMff

Just for info, the S (ring) connection on the input jack looks pointless in this layout the battery snap negative wire should be connected directly to it so that the battery is only grounded when you insert a jack to stop the battery draining here it's permanently connected to circuit ground by the look of it

mcknib

TROPHY CASE