SOLVED: Crack Resistance Check RCA failure [resolved]

[aaronrollins]

I’m getting 0 ohms on my RCA centers. I’m not seeing anything like this on the forums, which is a little alarming. I resoldered the solder cones on the RCA jacks, I even soldered the bottom lug of the potentiometer with the black wire going through and feeding into the top. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I was thinking maybe I didn’t attach it well enough so just soldered it (like a fool!).

Any tips anybody? Really bummed. Had all the good readings on everything else except these very last two items. Still need to get my speedball in!

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Can you post some photos of your build?

 

[aaronrollins]

Terminal 9 is dirty from me using rosin on the first go. Any tips on cleaning that up?

 

[Paul Birkeland]

One black wire on your HP jack does not look well soldered.

Can you post a photo of your meter measuring the center pin of one RCA jack?

 

[aaronrollins]

Using the ground nut for black alligator clip. What part of the black wire are you referring to on the headphone jack? Thanks for the help.

 

[aaronrollins]

Just realizing OL might mean over limit? I was taking it in as 0.0 (sorry new multimeter, still getting use to it). Everything still checks out except I’m not getting 0.0 for my RCA grounds/poles, just the OL. Maybe I need to resolder that black wire going into the HP jack? When I test the ground lug by the power jack (My black tester attached to 12U) it reads 0.0 so that’s good.

 

[aaronrollins]

Resoldered the bottom left lug of the HP jack. Still same readings. Anything I should try to look for in particular?

 

[aaronrollins]

Figured it out. I completely skipped step 2 of page 35, completely leaving out the black wire attaching the power grid to the rca system. Resoldered 3L and added the wire to the bottom right potentiometer lug I nervously soldered initially (I was half right!). Had to do some super tight soldering for my skill level but we are all good now! 0.0 on my ground and 98k on my tips. Hopefully the speedball goes smoothly! Cheers

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Yes, "OL" is over limit.  100K isn't particularly high for a meter, but it's still good enough to work through one of these kits.  Be sure to take some time between the completion of the Crack build and the Speedball upgrade to let things settle in a bit.