Channel imbalance standard crack/odd voltage terminal 10

[jurgerking]

Hi! I just finished the standard crack, it sounds great! The only problem is that I have a channel imbalance, left channel is louder.  It seems like the issue is there until the pot is fully turned or almost fully turned. Also, right after I plug in the amp, terminal 10 reads 175V but slowly drops to 0 over a minute or two. Is that normal?
For the channel imbalance, I've tried cleaning both tubes, and different headphones but the issue remains.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

[Paul Birkeland]

Terminal 10 should have absolutely no DC voltage on it at all when you turn on the Crack.  It would be extremely helpful to see some photos of your build.  I would also strongly recommend not trying to use it yet.

[jurgerking]

I got some pics this morning. If any other angles or closeups are needed let me know.
Thanks a bunch for the help!

[Paul Birkeland]

I will circle all the problem areas in a few photos.

I'm not a huge fan of the way the ground wire has been run between the headphone jack and front 5 lug terminal strip.

Most of your wires are stripped way too far back, and these can eventually touch the chassis or other adjacent terminals.  This will cause future reliability problems.

Nearly all of your solder joints don't have anywhere near enough solder on them to be solid.  Don't be afraid of using a little bit more and holding the iron on the joint until it flows between the wire and the terminal.

[jurgerking]

Ok, thanks for the pointers. I'll touch up all the joints with more solder and try to remedy the problem areas you've circled.  Thanks for the help again! I'll report back once I've finished that process.

[jurgerking]

Ok I added more solder to all the joints you pointed out and added more to other joints that looked like they didn't have much.  The voltage issue is resolved now, everything looks normal now.  However, the channel imbalance issue is still there. How should I go about troubleshooting from here?
Thanks!

[Paul Birkeland]

Can you post your voltages on terminals 1-10?

-PB

[jurgerking]

1. 61v
2. 161v
3. 0v
4. 161v
5. 61v
6. 0v
7. 94v
8. 0v
9. 94v
10. 0v

[Paul Birkeland]

I would suggest that the imbalance is still related to a solder joint that needs some more heat.  The other debugging procedure that I use is to play a 60Hz tone from your cell phone at max volume into the input of the Crack.  You can then measure AC voltage between ground and various points to find where the dropout may be.

If you want to try those tests, try the 60Hz tone at max volume (with the Crack off) and let us know what AC voltage you see from the center pin of each RCA jack to ground.