Complete Newbie

[ryancox88]

Hello everyone, my name is Ryan. I am completely new to the world of guitar electronics. I do intend to order the beginner project and complete that. I just had a quick question regarding PCB's and perfboard

Can I build any effect with perfboard that uses PCB?

Perfboard appeals to me in a technical way that PCB's cannot. I feel like I understand perfboard construction much better than I can PCB.

After completing the beginner project my next pedal will be an Octavia clone. however the only things I have found are all with PCB construction.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[glops]

The answer is yes, you can build anything on perf.  There are probably lots of projects with millions of parts that you wouldn't want to build on perf.  But for a lot of projects that don't have an insane amount of components, they can be easily built on perf.  There are a lot of projects that have PCB layouts freely available and if you learned how to make PCB's (lots of info on this out there), it is matter of putting the components in place and just hitting it with some solder.

When I started, I didn't want to learn how to make PCB's since I was trying get past the other learning curves.  It seemed easier to whip something up on perf.  To this day I have yet to make a PCB and do everything on perf.  Basically, I lay everything out on perf as close as possibly to the schematic.  I am just about to finish an Ampeg Scrambler on perf and it has been really tricky and confusing to route everything.  I used DIY layout creator (free), which has a perfboard template and I did a layout similar to the schematic.  Before, I would not do any kind of layout and the perf was a mess and ugly, but this time it has come out much better. 

It will take some practice, but a good place to start is the beginner's project or any other small parts project.  The build tutorial is great for the beginner's project and shows you how to layout the parts and solder the connections.  Good luck.

-Richard

[ryancox88]

Thanks for the info man! I'll hopefully be ordering the beginners kit sometime this month!

[ryancox88]

Also, I have been looking for a good resource to get a better grasp of pedal schematics. I've found a few things, but I was wondering if anyone here had some resources for a newbie learning out to read schems!

Thanks!

[glops]

Beavis Audio was a great source for me as a beginner.  I need to SEE how to arrange components and the diagrams on this site, specifically this page:

http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/SchematicToReality/ was a tremendous help and got the ball rolling.  That and the build pictorial for the beginner's project helped
a lot...

[Hides-His-Eyes]

I've never worked with perf, only with vero: is it any more difficult to solder?

I just have images of me trying to solder three component legs together in one spot and them all springing away and me dropping it and everything going wronger than everything else :S

[deadastronaut]

I've never worked with perf, only with vero: is it any more difficult to solder?

I just have images of me trying to solder three component legs together in one spot and them all springing away and me dropping it and everything going wronger than everything else :S

me too...only used vero and pcb...i cant get the perf with the copper holes in the uk easily...

i can only get the plain non copper holed stuff...thats what put me off...vero is nice n easy though!...i;d go for that as a first build of anything really..

as long as you get the orientation of the cuts right of course...loads of vero layouts in the gallery ..good luck.

[philbinator1]

Hideshiseyes/ yeah personally i found vero way less confusing than perf.  might have a go at it again some day though.

glops/ ditto regarding Beavis; his site is excellent for beginners.

ryancox88/ Welcome  

[oldrocker]

Perf is just like anything else.  It takes practice.  Yes perf without copper around the holes sux.  The beauty of perf for me is you can modify on the fly without waiting for someone to make a layout.  As stated above laying out circuits by following the schems makes it versatile.  The more parts used and more complex circuits would be harder.  Although I've built a few of those without too much struggle.  I have made PCB's too but no vero yet.  Making your own layouts on vero would be a good learning experience too.
Some more complex perfs I've built are :
Rebote 2.5 Delay
Zombie Chorus
Ultra Flanger
Easyvibe
Omni Drive
Phase 45
But thanks to John Hollis it made most of these possible with his low parts count designs.
My newest builds are :
Dr. Boogey
BSIAB2
Base Balls
and still on the bread board is the Chopped OC-2 octave down.

[Mark Hammer]

The secret to perfing is lots of time or good notes.  The enemy of perfing is memory.

One of the nice things about PCBs is that they do the remembering for you.  Each component has a designated location, and all appropriate connections are already made on the board.  When you work with perfboard, it's up to YOU to remember what has been connected to what already, what remains to be installed, and so on.  As a family man, I can say after some 35 years of making stuff that if you can't make it in an evening or lazy weekend, you probably don't want to make it on perfboard.

The compromise is what is referred to as pad-per-hole.  These are boards which, as they indicate, provide one copper pad for each hole onthe board; like perfboard...but more.  They have two chief virtues.  First, the pads give you somethng to solder to and keep components rigid (components can be a little wobbly on perfboard).  Second, but perhaps more important, they usually come with some sort of grid indication and notation, such as letters along one axis and numbers along another.  So you can take notes indicating that points F12, J4, and H8 still have to be connected to ground.  The pad per hole boards that Steve daniels at Small Bear sells are a thing of beauty.  He has them custom made for Small Bear, and they are pleasingl thick, clearly legended, and come with pretinned solder pads for good joints.  You can even get them double sided.

So what is good about perfboard?  Although a great many layouts attempt to be economical in terms of footprint, they aren't always as compact as they might be or an ideal matchup to the chassis you want to use, or to the way you want to lay out your components.  Perf gives you flexibility.  Part of that flexibility is also in terms of component choice.  Maybe you got a great deal on caps that are a bit bigger or smaller than called for on the PCB.  Perf will accommodate that.  Maybe the schematic calls for a quad op-amp and you only have duals (or vice versa).  Perf will accommodate that nicely.  Pad-per-hole is nice in many ways, but it comes in predefined sizes, and is costlier, per square inch, than perfboard, because of the extra features it provides.

But, like I say, when it is up to YOU to remember what is and isn't installed and what connections have and haven't been made, there starts to be a size limits as to what you want to perf.  Certainly some members here have perfed some awfully big projects.  But keep in mind these are seasoned builders, and also folks whose big-picture thinking about board layout is fairly advanced.  For now, I'd stick to small things like the various circuits that use up to 3 transistors or perhaps one dual op-amp.  A year or two from now, once you've mastered a few more layout tricks, you can aim higher, but for now put anything bigger than those limimts on a PCB if you want the thing to actually work (as opposed to taking up every spare weekend trying to debug the damn thing).

[petemoore]

  Perf-Bread...you can use 8pin or other IC sockets so when you want a board that is like many circuits such as:
  Distortion + Board can accomodate, Blue Clipper, DOD250, many variants.
  Say you want a boost in front of your distorter^...PCB Design and perfboard would be 2 options, both require memory/layout time, anything that has the schematic parts connections perfectly represented will work.
  FuzzFace: For this one a Perfbread board is a good way to find the FF you want, since it's small and very variable in tones, it's easy to take what you've found and put it on a permanent board [no sockets/hardwired everything].
  8Pin IC sockets for Q's 1 and 2 for FF transistors [use the 4th socket plug of each column as a collector probe point], this makes a very sturdy construction for swapping transistors. Add more sockets for input and output caps or...
  Start large value capacitors, then series another capacitor where you want to try a smaller value.
  Same with resistors, start with some raised resistor leg [above board, raised 1/4'' or so to create solder-to points], then the large value can be trimmed by connecting a larger value pot, or another resistor to the above board resistor lead.
  Worth to read about FF bias and trimpot the Q2 collector resistance, by making it variable it can accomodate and bias various gain transistors. Using a 'stop resistor' of say 6k8 and a 10k or 20k trimpot in series. The 10k trimpot allows a range between 6k8 and 16k8 with a 6k8 stop resistor, a 20k of course would allow between 6k8 and 28k8 resistance. Most of the transistors I liked the sound of biased between 6k8 and 15k, Ymmv.

[ryancox88]

Great replies guys! great great info!