Hi There, I wanted to first mention that this is a fantastic little kit. I finally built mine and noticed that I can barely get any audible sound unless I crank the gain. Granted It sounds nice and gnarly, but There does seem to be a lot of acclaim on the interwebs for the clean tones. So, I'm wondering if I could have done something obviously wrong. Didnt notice any bad solder jobs but I havent looked super closely yet. As for power, Im using the 4pack AA batteries and tested it on a 8ohm cab (100 watt max) and a 4 ohm guitar speaker. Thanks,
Brad
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Member for
13 years 3 monthsDouble check your solder joints
Double check your solder joints, especially around the brown 100uf capacitors and everything on the output.
Also check the wires connecting each pot: those stranded pot wires sometimes have a single strand of wire that comes over and makes contact. Check the connection at the pot, the bottom of the PCB, and, a tricky one, sometimes there is enough exposed wire ABOVE the pcb, so that if the pot wire twists, the wire comes in contact with another wire, just barely, enough to cut the volume way out.
With the gain cranked all the way down and the other knobs cranked all the way up you should hear something. Do you hear anything when you do that?
Member for
12 years 1 monthThanks for the response. I
Thanks for the response. I double checked the joints and pots and didn't notice any strands. One bit of strangeness i noticed is that with the volume and trim cranked up and gain all the way down I get faint clean tone. When I turn the gain up it has very little effect until around 8 or 9. Then once all the way up I get that gritty distortion.
Member for
12 years 1 monthYa know what. As soon as I
Ya know what. As soon as I hit the send button I dropped the amp and blammo....works perfectly! Sounds awesome man. Looks like there must have been some sorta stray solder or strand just like you suggested. Thank you very much for your support and producing such a great kit.
Member for
13 years 3 monthsHa ha! Glad to hear it.
Ha ha! Glad to hear it.
But something is loose. I bet you dollars to donuts the problem comes up again. One of my amps had this problem, and it was a loose solder joint in one of the pot wires. A different amp had a similar problem, only that time, I accidentally caused a mechanical failure in the solder joints on the 100uf capacitors, so the power was cutting in and out.