What's your success ratio? FRUSTRATED

[Bill Mountain]

Judging by a bunch of the replies above, it seems there's a lack of breadboarding before actually soldering on a board.

I really think one of the biggest novice errors (other than not learning how to read a schematic...and just soldering by numbers) is buying a kit and soldering before breadboarding (especially if it's not a monster size circuit).

Breadboarding is a first test to see if it actually works and lets you tweak till you get it just how you like it.
It really means very little if it fires up on the first shot, if the sound is not great.  

To the OP: Looking at your previous posts here, it doesn't look like you've asked for any troubleshooting help. The members here are about as kind and generous as you're going to get, so ask away...after reading the debug thread, of course...

good luck

Actually, I'm moving away from the breadboard.  I spend most of my time thinking about the circuit and modeling it.  Then I build it.  I seem to prefer spending my time studying than actually breadboarding.  Sure, I'm missing out on happy accidents but it has saved me many long nights.

[frank_p]

Remember - you haven't failed until you give up.

After we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed to find out anything. I cheerily assured him that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn't be done that way, and that we would have to try some other way.
Thomas Edison, American Magazine, January 1921
While perfecting the reliability of the light bulb that was invented and patented several years before !

[Perrow]

Remember - you haven't failed until you give up.

After we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed to find out anything. I cheerily assured him that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn't be done that way, and that we would have to try some other way.
Thomas Edison, American Magazine, January 1921
While perfecting the reliability of the light bulb that was invented and patented several years before !

I've heard it told as he said he never failed, he excluded possibilities.

[Styles]

Thanks for all the replies. This is probably the most frustrating and rewarding hobby I've gotten myself involved in. I've been building for a few years now and generally do alright with them. Used to etch my own pcbs but got hooked on veros and been doing that for the last year or so. If anyone has checked my prior posts you'll see that I'm in the middle of a 5x multi effect build that is driving me bonkers. The score so far:

Fn5:  works, boost is way loud even with volume rolled back
Silicon tonebender:  works, really harsh and tone control doesn't seem to do anything
Phase45 vibed:  passes signal but no phase. Have matched transistors on the way
Pork barrel ce2:  passes signal, no chorus effect
Rebote 2.5:  works, crazy distorted runaway delay though
Splitter: works
Sho boost: works

Gonna mess around some more tonight, will probably take readings and start posting debug threads soon. Argfufhfh!!!

[nordine]

Thanks for all the replies. This is probably the most frustrating and rewarding hobby I've gotten myself involved in. I've been building for a few years now and generally do alright with them. Used to etch my own pcbs but got hooked on veros and been doing that for the last year or so. If anyone has checked my prior posts you'll see that I'm in the middle of a 5x multi effect build that is driving me bonkers. The score so far:

Fn5:  works, boost is way loud even with volume rolled back
Silicon tonebender:  works, really harsh and tone control doesn't seem to do anything
Phase45 vibed:  passes signal but no phase. Have matched transistors on the way
Pork barrel ce2:  passes signal, no chorus effect
Rebote 2.5:  works, crazy distorted runaway delay though
Splitter: works
Sho boost: works

Gonna mess around some more tonight, will probably take readings and start posting debug threads soon. Argfufhfh!!!

make sure its condensed in ONE big debug thread 
post pics of copper/solder side, for me 90% errors are due to touching tracks

[chromesphere]

Used to etch my own pcbs but got hooked on veros and been doing that for the last year or so.

Theres your problem   i know there are some vero ninja's out there, but personally i only use it for really small circuits and basic stuff.  Too much room for error if you ask me. (P.s. hope you get your pork barrel working!)
Paul

[Projectile]

Fires up and works perfectly on the first try? Probably 1 in 3 times I build something. Though, it rarely takes more than 5-10 minutes of debugging to find the problem. I've never had any abortions.

If I'm doing any modifications to a design, I usually breadboard before building, unless the circuit is huge. 

[chromesphere]

Oh styles, one thing for the phase 45.  If you use J201's, you dont necessary need to match them (measure) for the p45.  I went through about 10 and found 2 that i thought sounded best, just plugged them in, tested, "that one sounds good", next, etc.  No measuring or anything.  Cant do it with the p90 though i think you need to be more precise, so i hear.

Give it a go if you have some j201's lying around! Was really easy to get 2 x p45's going!

Paul

[Mark Hammer]

Projects with JFETs are a perennial source of difficulty with me.  As I'm fond of saying, you wouldn't think it would be mathematically possible, but despite having only 3 pins, there are 827 ways to have the pinout of a JFET wrong.

make sure you have the datasheet on hand for the specific brand of JFET you bought, not just something with the same part number.

[pinkjimiphoton]

i've gotten almost all my builds to work...somewhere around 30 of 'em so far.

the only ones that really escaped me were escobedo's wobbletron,  the one knob chorus of anchovie's (more a 2399 qc issue than a design flaw) and the kay fuzz. other than that, all of 'em at least passed signal once debugged...probably 40 percent have worked out of the gate.