Pacing my project

[jnuh]

Greetings, people! New here, and already impressed with this webpage.

I'm planning on building my first guitar pedal, and since i fear that my troubleshooting skills are pretty limited, my plan is to be really thorough when building and hopefully i'll be able to avoid any mistakes.

Therefore, i wanted to check with you guys for tips on how i can pace my building, i.e. doing systematic measuring or similar to avoid making any mistakes. I'd be really grateful for any tips you have!

Thanks in advance

[rocket88]

some things to think about.
1 -  start off with a simpler circuit, something like a Si fuzzface, booster, or simple distortion/od like an Electra based effect. this way if you do have issues, there's a low parts count, and less to go over in order to debug it.

2 - take your time, and don't rush. sounds simple and common sense, but it's easy to get excited and rush and miss something stupid or make a stupid mistake

3 - mark the cuts from the top of the board with a sharpie, drill the hole larger, and finish the cut by spinning a large drill bit around on the copper side to ensure the copper is cut completely. i do it this way so i can use the now larger hole on the top as a reference for all the components placement.

what i do is i start on one side and move across the board placing and soldering all the components of the same type, then move onto the next. i always start with resistors since they lay flat, then sockets for the transistors/IC's/diodes, then poly caps, then ceramic, then electrolytics. i put in the socketed components only after everything is wired and ready to test, so they can't get destroyed by the soldering iron.

i also color coat my wires, so if there is a problem i can easily trace what wire is where to see if i missed wired something. as far as measuring parts, i only measure transistors if there is a specific gain range i'm looking for or is "required" for a circuit, and sometimes i'll checked the forward voltage of diode i'm using for clipping, if i want them to be matching.

i think as you start building you'll develop your own way of building, just like i have and a lot of the other guys on here.

i think 1 & 2 are the most important things to keep in mind. my first build was a green russian BMP, which while it worked, i had a bunch of errors and things that needed to be corrected. i not only had a rather large circuit i was building, but i got so excited i made a lot of stupid mistakes.

if you haven't read the build guide already, i would check it out. it's a great quick read that explains the concepts of how to build, and has some great pictures to help you visualize what you're doing. check it out, here.

[dbat69]

I do much the same as Rocket, although I don't drill holes through - I just mark both sides of the vero where the cuts are, BUT I double check I have them right.  Drilling a hole is a good way to start.

I also do the components in a methodical way, like Rocket - wire links first, then resistors etc.
I always socket transistors and ICs or any components which may be changed, or expensive ones

ALWAYS remember the vero layout shown in the blog are viewed looking down on to the component side (with the components on top) - the copper strips are underneath (so it is a bit like an x-ray image, if you get my drift).  Think of it another way - if you printed the vero layout onto paper, you would stick it on the non-copper side and mount the components on that side, copper strips being underneath.
Getting this wrong is the easiest mistake to make and we've all done it

I usually do test my components, its easy to pick up a wrong resistor etc.

I also use a jewlers loupe (small magnifying glass with an LED light) - its great for checking soldering and those hard to see component markings.  (I think I gave Heath a new lease of life when I told him about these little gems )  They are cheap on ebay.

EDIT:  The link below will give some good info, but unfortunately it went a bit off towards the end
http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/Newbie-questions-and-doubts-td12737.html

[Surgeon]

All good suggestions here.

About the cuts: With time I got lazy. What I do now is take the layout, open it in paint and then flip it horizontally. That way, I can turn my vero board "copper side up" and make the cuts the same way I see them... faster and easier than any other method I've used so far...

Really, just take each step slowly.

One thing I used to do in my first builds was to measure each component (resistor and caps) to make sure I had the right values... it's tedious but doing this I never had to debug based on trying to find a faulty component.

Don't forget to have fun doing it too!

[dbat69]

Surgeon wrote

About the cuts: With time I got lazy. What I do now is take the layout, open it in paint and then flip it horizontally. That way, I can turn my vero board "copper side up" and make the cuts the same way I see them... faster and easier than any other method I've used so far...

Don't forget to have fun doing it too!

I do the same as Surgeon with Paint - just make sure you save it as another file name - its so hard trying to read everything backwards  erm yes I have found that out the hard way too

Ohh and before too long ... you will be hooked ... and spending lots on collecting components so you can build what you want whenever it takes your fancy

[Jopn]

Most importantly, don't fear mistakes.  Most of the learning comes from making mistakes and troubleshooting.  With a multimeter and an audio probe handy, there's very little that a misbehaving circuit can throw at you that can't be solved.