a small sense of achievement

[bluebunny]

You may remember this small build-binge a week or so back:

Here's a couple that I finished off yesterday  . . . Rob's bass preamp . . . a Unicorn Breath buffer

. . . a Tube Reamer . . . a Stratoblaster booster and an Electra distortion

What wasn't apparent from the pictures was that three of them didn't work!  At all.  Rob's preamp: nuthin'.  Tube Reamer: nada.  Stratoblaster: zip.   

B U T ! ! !   

After almost seven years here, it looks like I've absorbed a little knowledge, a few techniques, sh!tloads of help and the ability to debug my own cack-handed builds!  Yay!   

So - I'm feeling a tiny bit pleased with myself (after the initial total deflation) and wanted to say thanks.   

[Mark Hammer]

Sometimes, the secret is to pay as much attention to the soldering, the component values, and the wiring as one does to the graphics.   

But nice work, and congrats on the various launches.  I have no end of boards to be revived and turned into something useful, so I'm a fine one to admonish others.

[bluebunny]

I should have said: the preamp was a whisker short between Vero tracks that I deduced, rather than eye-balled (R_DS on one JFET about 500R, but zero on the other!).  The other two were discontinuities between tags that were joined with wire!  (Who would have thought that soldering tags could be so prone to cock-ups?)  But both worked out with the ol' DMM (nothing remotely close to 0V on the 4558 in the Reamer...).

I too have a couple more in need of remedial attention.  Now I'm on a roll, I'll dig 'em out. 

[Mark Hammer]

Much like one's favorite sports team, there can be periods where one is on a roll and everything you touch turns to gold and fires up first time, interspersed with periods where nothing seems to ever work.  I've had more evenings than I care to remember where the momentum carried me, and it was getting late, but I was only 10 solder joints away from having something I was looking forward to, then 8, 6 4, 2, aaaannnnd........nuthin'.  Too late at night to troubleshoot with any confidence, so I go to bed frustrated and stare at the ceiling, thinking about what could have gone wrong.

If I had a nickel for every one of those evenings....

[BetterOffShred]

I had a bunch of builds come together like an episode of the A-Team..  and now I have a delay on my breadboard and it's being a real piece of .. well I digress.   Yeah I try to learn something useful from each build ..   

[EBK]

What wasn't apparent from the pictures was that three of them didn't work!  At all. 

My first thought was, "We can post pics of duds?! That's not cheating/scandalous?!"   
I got over that initial reaction pretty quickly though. 
I love reading stories of achievements.  It is inspiring.  (Pics of non-working pedals are inspiring too.   )

[digi2t]

Sometimes, the secret is to pay as much attention to the soldering, the component values, and the wiring as one does to the graphics.   

But nice work, and congrats on the various launches.  I have no end of boards to be revived and turned into something useful, so I'm a fine one to admonish others.

Precisely why I forego the graphics. The soldering, component values, and wiring squeeze all the juice out of me. None left for graphics.

They sure are purdy tho.

[vigilante397]

I usually wait about a week or so after soldering before worrying about boxing and artwork. Gives me a chance to play with it a bit and often provides inspiration for artwork.

[antonis]

Let me see if I get you, Marc..

Did you integrated those pedals (enclosures, graphics, boxing e.t.c.) WITHOUT prior working tests..?? 

[Marcos - Munky]

Let me see if I get you, Marc..

Did you integrated those pedals (enclosures, graphics, boxing e.t.c.) WITHOUT prior working tests..?? 

I do it a lot of times

[Marcos - Munky]

I think the "wow, I built it and it worked at fist" feeling is great. But the "it didn't worked, but I made it to work" feeling is even better - well, that if you don't consider the sad feeling of "it doesn't work" that happens right before the "let's fix it" .

[bluebunny]

Let me see if I get you, Marc..

Did you integrated those pedals (enclosures, graphics, boxing e.t.c.) WITHOUT prior working tests..?? 

Ahem...  Yes.  Soz.   

[Jeema]

Too late at night to troubleshoot with any confidence, so I go to bed frustrated and stare at the ceiling, thinking about what could have gone wrong.

I actually won't allow myself to work on stuff after a certain hour because of this exact phenomenon of not having time to fix it and then lying in bed thinking about it unable to sleep.

[Transmogrifox]

If I had a nickel for every one of those evenings....

...then maybe you could have a bag of Skittles every few years.

You must really love this stuff  

[stringsthings]

Excellent work Mr. Bunny.  Color me jealous.