A little Positive Thought for you folks for a Friday.

[Heath]

So, I started off my pedal building endeavors with Joe Gore's tonefiend.com projects on perfboard.  Very small circuits, but nice big awesome sounds.  I'm still very VERY partial to his take on the Fuzzface and his Fiendmaster (as I call it, it's a take on the Rangemaster) is one of my favorite treble boosters out of all of them.  After building 3 or 4 circuits, I decided to branch out and build some more complicated stuff.  This is when I learned I hated perfboard.  Without Joe's patient explanations and simple layouts, I was lost.

Then I discovered stripboard.  After a few clumsy attempts at simple circuits I kind of got the hang of it (although whenever I go back to an early circuit I built, I cringe and wonder what the fuck I thought I was doing).  I actually built Sabro's Phase-90 pretty early on and the damn thing just worked.  Looking back, it probably would have been a better lesson if it hadn't worked right off... because now I thought I was the Shit, man.

So I discovered Mark's site here and basically lost my damn mind.  I made a list... a HUGE list... forwarded my next paycheck to Tayda, and dove in, headfirst, like Scarface in a pile of coke.  I lost track of how many I've built now, but it's a lot.  My bedroom could legally change it's name it Circuit City.

So, and this is the real point of this post, somewhere along, as I began getting pickier about what I built and going for bigger and more complicated circuits, I started losing it.  I started turning out duds.  Build it, doesn't work, try to troubleshoot (but the circuit complexity has, at this time, surpassed my ability to figure out what the hell is wrong), toss it in my Dammit Box, and move on to something else.

After a while it started feeling like it wasn't worth the effort.  It seemed like at least every other circuit I built failed to launch.  I'll say this, my soldering skills have progressed amazingly.  I can solder like a badass now.  Still, my box of non-working boards was piling up.

Sometimes I think one has to step back, refocus, and look for bad habits and weaknesses.  I sort of stepped back for a few months, maybe made a small simple board every now and then and just sort of detoxxed.  

After a while, I started to feel the urge again, so I decided to pick a few circuits from my "to do" list and print the layouts out on some UPS label paper to stick to the boards first.  I'd seen a few people do this, and it's a bit of extra work, but has really made a difference.  I started lightly sanding my boards, copper side, after making my trace cuts, which really cleans up any little wandering snags of copper, and then going over it with a small paint brush to get any little bits out of the tracks, etc.  I also check every capacitor I put in a circuit.

So after having some success with this, I started eyeballing that Dammit Box and getting annoyed at how many boards I had in there, circuits that I really wanted, that either weren't working at all or not working right.

I stared with a PCB version of the Rub-A-Dub Delux Reverb I got from 1776effects.com.  I was really annoyed as the pcb + reverb brick cost me about $30 with shipping.  That's quite a bit more than I usually spend on a circuit by a long shot.  Plus it really agitated me that I failed on a pcb so small and simple-seeming.  So I got it out and started looking at it.  I was thinking I might try to detatch the reverb brick and make the vero layout, then I noticed I had scratched the PCB in a couple of places.  It looked incredibly minor, but I started thinking it was the only reasonable thing that could be wrong with it.  So I soldered over the scratches.. lo and behold it started working perfectly!

Next I got out my Triple Wreck.  It worked, as far as full out gain and what not, but the gain knob did not work and the toggle switch went from full bore to muted garbage.  I just sat and stared at it.  I checked a few greenie caps, one of which traced to that toggle switch and thought.. "Now why the heck would I have used greenies on these two 47n caps, and boxes on the other three 47n caps?"  I'll tell you why, because those 2 greenies were supposed to be 4.7n.  I said, what the hell, and carefully de-soldered them, replacing them with 4.7n box caps.  Now I have a baddass Triple Wreck working as it's supposed to.

Then I snatched up my nonworking green Wizard OD (Paul Stevenson's design), fiddled with it, found a missing link, popped some germanium diodes in it, BLAMMO, now it's one of my favorite overdrives.

On  a roll, I grabbed the Trem Shifter that had never worked and went cross-eyed trying to figure out why.  This one was fun...  the grounding connection was broken and I had a bum LED.  Switcharoo, bit of solder, and the Dead Astronaut rides again!

So if you're feeling defeated or discouraged, step back, evaluate, take a break, don't burn yourself out.  It quits being fun if you let the fails and faults get to you.  Don't be discouraged by a larger more complex circuit (unless it's the Mutron Phaser, then you should run away).  Don't forget that some of these smaller circuits are actually giants (MI Audio Crunchbox, for example).  It's all just bits and pieces.. and worse come to worse, you can always just dremel the shit out of the board and it feels real good, trust me.

Also, if have a case of the Vero blues, go grab some PCBs.  They are a fun change (though I do prefer the DIY aspect of Vero quite a bit more).

I just snagged myself an Aquaboy Deluxe and a Dirtbaby from MadeBean and a Thunderbird and Britannia from 1776effects.

For anyone interested in trying out some PCBs, here's a short list I have where you can get some good ones:

1776effects.com
jmkpcbs.com
lectric-fx.com
www.guitarpcb.com
www.madbeanpedals.com
www.3pdt.com
musicpcb.com
tonepad.com

[fenderguy79]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Heath.
I too have a 'dammit' box full of failed or recycled boards.  I haven't really considered resurrecting any of them as I've scavenged them for parts, plus I already have way too many pedals I'm not using.

I've really stepped back and become more selective about what I'm building; before it was just over drives, then I moved to delay, vibe, compression, etc.
It got to the point where my apartment was covering in parts; just a mess.  So I cleaned up and organized and it feels much better now.

I've also been much more of a function over image builder.  Leaving cases as plain metallic.
After awhile that becomes really boring, so I think I need to finish the boxes I do have.  I have even found a prepainted box will make me enjoy a pedal much more.  Weird.

[Frank_NH]

Heh!  I have a dammit box too!  Full of projects that didn't quite work, and I suspect they have issues like yours Heath.  One that has puzzled me is the May Queen - it sounded like crap and was so simple.  Like General McArthur said "I Shall Return"...(to my dammit box projects).  

By the way, add Aion Electronics to your list.  I've built some of their boards (in particular my Klon clone is from Aion) and they are great.  They recently started offering a board for the Pearl OD-05...yes!

[rocket88]

 well said, I can't agree more Heath. I've found since I was out, due to ther move, recently coming back it was the best thing I could do. I don't have many in my damn-it box, but the ones I do are multiples that I couldn't get to work like the catalinbread manx. I plan on figuring out my issues with them, but there is a time when it's important to just step back for a bit and relax so you don't burn out.

Btw, I take it you've gotten back to your favorite, little angel chorus?

[negativefx]

I had a Suhr Riot sitting in my dammit box for over a year. It worked but was noisy as hell and the tone pot didn't work.  Pulled it out, derped out on some super stupid mistakes I made, swapped two wires and (as you said) BLAMMO.  Great distortion.

Speaking of PCBs... a long time ago madbeans had a great sale going on and I ordered a pile of PCBs.  Low Rider, Stage Fright, Pork Barrel, Aquaboy Deluxe, Zero Point Double Delay, and Smoothie.  Haven't touched a single one of them.  Might have a long weekend... my dammit box is empty and I have no excuse to delay building these!

[Muadzin]

There was a time when I had a failed build that I would take it to a guy who would troubleshoot it for me. He lived in the same city as me and is known as Bernarduur on some forums, like FSB and DIYS. If you google for Big Muff mods chances are the first page to come up is his Big Muff mod page. Nice guy, knew everything there is about electronics. Way more then I do even now.

Alas, he moved after finishing his studies and now I no longer had a guy who knew how to troubleshoot things for me. Thus I also began a dammit box. There was even a time when I grew disgusted with vero after I had a whole series of failed Big Muff vero builds. So I began to order pcb boards by the dozen. For a while that worked. With no need to make a circuit from scratch there there were less chances to make mistakes. There were still failures though. And those were just as frustrating.

Over time no longer having a guy to fix things for me was probably a blessing in disguise. I still suffer from having no backgrounds in electronics. But I learned how to use a DMM and an audioprobe. And those two tools have helped me a lot in troubleshooting my builds and enjoy some succes. I still have a dammit box. But its also addictive when you manage to get something working again. There was a time when half my builds ended up in the dammit box. Sometimes even more. Nowadays my successrate is a lot bigger, the box a lot smaller and I probaby take out as as much as I put in. And nowadays I prefer vero over pcb as I find it easier to troubleshoot vero over pcb's. It's harder to trace the signal flow on pcb's then it is with vero and the big wide tracks of vero make it way easier to use a signal probe, at least for me. Not to mention that correcting a mistake is a lot easier with vero. Desoldering components is deadeasy on vero, whereas with pcb's its a pain in the ass.

Not to mention that when you monumentally screw up a pcb you're screwed. Screw up a vero board you just cut a new piece and you can start anew.

[Heath]

Wow, I wasn't expecting much of a response.  I was just feeling good about being motivated to fix some things that had bothered me when I was just not in much of a mood to do a bunch of troubleshooting.  

fenderguy79 wrote

I've really stepped back and become more selective about what I'm building; before it was just over drives, then I moved to delay, vibe, compression, etc.
It got to the point where my apartment was covering in parts; just a mess.  So I cleaned up and organized and it feels much better now.

I've also been much more of a function over image builder.  Leaving cases as plain metallic.
After awhile that becomes really boring, so I think I need to finish the boxes I do have.  I have even found a prepainted box will make me enjoy a pedal much more.  Weird.

I've gotten quite selective too.  I have so many pedals now and they start to sound the same :/  I spent money on a D'Lay pcb from guitarpcb.com and then ended up ordering the tap tempo board and then ended up ordering the taptation chipset from diystomboxes ($20.00 plus shipping just by itself)... I got it all built, turned it on and it's working fine... but I've got about a dozen delay pedals now and while I love the stuff from gpcb.com, it's a fairly generic delay circuit (based on the Rebote) and after spending that time (lots of time as it's a pretty involved build with all the extras) and money (as mentioned above, about $45-$50 just in parts) I was just sort of "ho hum" about it.  Meh.  Distinctly unsatisfying.

I built the Pink Purple Fuzz a while back, and while I'm not bagging on this circuit, I finished it, plugged it up and, yay, sound about like everything else.  If I had built it as one of my initial builds, I'd have loved it, I'm sure, but as I've built about 20 fuzzes, it just got tossed in a box to probably be recycled.

For the record, the fuzz pedals that have stayed interesting to me so far are BAT Pharaoh, Mastadon Fuzz, my tweaked Tone bender MkIII, The Fiend Fuzz (from Joe Gore), a 1 knob fuzz from here based on the BAT Ritual, and the Skreddy Lunar Module.  So you can see right there I'm a bit of an oddball as far as the majority of fuzz-heads here.

Frank_NH wrote

One that has puzzled me is the May Queen - it sounded like crap and was so simple.  Like General McArthur said "I Shall Return"...(to my dammit box projects).  

By the way, add Aion Electronics to your list.  I've built some of their boards (in particular my Klon clone is from Aion) and they are great.  They recently started offering a board for the Pearl OD-05...yes!

"I Shall Return" indeed!

Aion has been added.  My only disappointment with them is that it's almost all Distortion or OD which are usually the easiest circuits to build on vero.  There are obvious exceptions to that, though! :)  Is the Pearl OD really something different?  It's hard to tell from watching a youtube video.  If so, I might have to build one.  ODs are another category that I've built so many of that it's crazy.

rocket88 wrote

I plan on figuring out my issues with them, but there is a time when it's important to just step back for a bit and relax so you don't burn out.

Btw, I take it you've gotten back to your favorite, little angel chorus?

I've also found that, even if it seems stupidly obvious, having a decent workspace is important.  I think a lot of my worst builds are the result of a cramped messy desk where I'm just all over everything instead of being able to space things out better.

What REALLY pisses em off very VERY badly, though is having a circuit, especially a complicated big one, that works great, gets put in a box until a better time to put it in an enclosure, then when it gets pulled back out to finish, it's not working.  I was so proud of my ROG Tri-Vibe.  I made this nice enclosure for it, got all the offboard wiring done and was just about to stuff it all in, when I stopped to test it... and it's just randomly broken.  Hard to describe.. it's like a bypassed signal but when i hit the strings really hard you can hear a ghostly ragged vibe echoing along with the signal.  It went in a damn box and then came out.  No idea how or what friggin happened between now and then *sigh*

As to the Little Angel.. yeah, fuck that shit, man.  I will hate that circuit until the day I die.  

negativefx wrote

Speaking of PCBs... a long time ago madbeans had a great sale going on and I ordered a pile of PCBs.  Low Rider, Stage Fright, Pork Barrel, Aquaboy Deluxe, Zero Point Double Delay, and Smoothie.  Haven't touched a single one of them.  Might have a long weekend... my dammit box is empty and I have no excuse to delay building these!

PCBs, especially really nice ones from MadBean where he seems to test the shit out of circuits before selling them, are a very nice change from vero.  I'll probably never abandon vero, but for larger more complicated circuits, they rock.  I still vastly prefer vero for small to medium projects.  If you screw up, you just grab another $0.75 piece of vero and start over. :)  

I also love PCB for things like 3pdt wiring boards, relay latches, and such as they get really REALLY small.

Muadzin wrote

nowadays I prefer vero over pcb as I find it easier to troubleshoot vero over pcb's. It's harder to trace the signal flow on pcb's then it is with vero and the big wide tracks of vero make it way easier to use a signal probe, at least for me. Not to mention that correcting a mistake is a lot easier with vero. Desoldering components is deadeasy on vero, whereas with pcb's its a pain in the ass.

You said a mouthful there!  I have absolutely trashed a pcb trying to desolder a component and clear that bastard little hole of solder.  It really sucks paying $10 - $20 for a pcb and screwing it up.  God forbid you accidently solder a switch the the wrong side of the board.  Simultaneously desoldering 6 or more holes enough to pull those things loose is a nightmare I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Like you said, I can't trace a PCB easily like I can a vero board.  With my neanderthal-like meathooks and confused grunting, I can still often manage to trace a signal route on vero.

[Chris60601]

Right on brotha! I am going through one of those phases right now.
Heh, it seems any project I do over the past few days has ended up in the Bin of Dysfunction.

I knew it was a matter of time after a 10 build marathon that turned out really well with no issues. It was bound to happen.

Cheers
Chris

[Muadzin]

It's a simple case of taunting Murphy really. In order for a build to work we have to make no mistakes 100% of the time. Murphy on the other hand just needs us to f*** up once.

I wonder how many of our builds are still faulty but because they make noise and the pots and switches produce a discernible difference to said noise we think they are a success?