Am I the only idiot????

[bass_econo]

So yesterday I get to go home from work early...  No wife and the little girl is still at preschool.  The perfect time to work on a pedal! So I get everything I need and sit down and start perfing a board.  Now I'm still a noob but I was going pretty good for about an hour.   Well that's when I noticed that I had been building the board backward (or upside-down)!  I was so mad at myself.  I was just following the layout along..  To make matters worse I don't have any braid left because I used it all up salvaging parts earlier!

Geez... :cry:  :cry:  :cry:

[zeta55]

Trust me, you're not the only one. I've got a bad habit of etching my boards mirrored the wrong way. Very anoying..

[j.frad]

Yup I almost did this once, which forced me to put up a completely useless thread on this great forum just to figure out which side was up...

[puretube]

...that makes 4 of us  :lol:

[moosapotamus]

Double check what you've already done against your schematic. Might not be as bad as you think. Caps and resistors should be fine. If you put sockets for transistors, just verify the pinout and plug them in appropriately. Opamps and IC's in general, however, will have to go on the intended side, or they can be mountd on their back with leads coming up through the holes in the board and wrapping them to the IC's pins.
(The voice of experience  :oops: )

~ Charlie

[Wild Zebra]

On one of my first PNP boards I started to solder components on.
All of a sudden I says "Why and the hell won't the solder take?", because I forgot to get the PNP off.  Well haven't done that in a while, but I'm sure I'll do it again.

[bass_econo]

Double check what you've already done against your schematic. Might not be as bad as you think. Caps and resistors should be fine. If you put sockets for transistors, just verify the pinout and plug them in appropriately. Opamps and IC's in general, however, will have to go on the intended side, or they can be mountd on their back with leads coming up through the holes in the board and wrapping them to the IC's pins.
(The voice of experience  :oops: )

~ Charlie

Actually it is IC based so may I will just continue and mount the IC on the bottom...  IT just for me so I don't think I will mind.  Thanks, I was just so disgusted with myself that I didn't access the situation.  :oops:

Thanks!  

[Marcos - Munky]

This happens to me sometimes. In the last time, I made a Easyvibe board using RG's layout, then soldered everything. I just noticed it was reversed when I was soldering the ICs, I tried to solder them in the back of the board, but used some excessive solder and the board turned in a junkpiece.

[Mark Hammer]

One of the great assets of this hobby is that one has a great opportunity to learn humility, again, and again, and again, and again, and again.......


....and again, and again......




.....and again.    :roll:

[Nasse]

I noticed that with some layouts you can still use the board by putting  single-in-line components on copper side. But stuff like opamps is not easy to convert, maybe some dead bug style could be used. I have one phono preamp which has a TLO71 soldered on copper track side.

I have heard pro people put some text or graphics on pcb pattern to prevent mistakes. I @#$%ed it up anyway.

[Rick]

Yes, yes ... I pulled the old reverse pcb trick with a Rat pcb once so I know
how you all feel. Always in a hurry, a lot of us. I try to take my time more
now as it was somewhat annoying soldering the backasswards board. It did
work fine though, just looked peculiar with the IC being the only component
on the bottom of the board.  ...Rick

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

.....and again.    :roll:

Mark, how's the 'cupboard of doom' looking these days? :wink:
(mine's pretty full...)

[vanhansen]

<raises hand> I've done it to but then realized that it doesn't matter as long as the circuit worked, which it did, so I left it that way.  

[Basstyra]

My first circuit has been built upside down too...  :oops:

[JimRayden]

Don't solder it to the copper side!

Take the IC and bend the connectors to face the other side of the IC. That means, the IC is upside down but the legs are facing towards the board. That allows you to mount it on the right side of the board. Am I making myself clear here?


----------
Jimbo

[Paul Marossy]

I've designed and etched a few PCBs mirrored when I first starting designing my own. I was able to make them work, but one of them did have an opamp on the back side of the PCB!  :lol:

[bass_econo]

This is great, I was thinking I was the biggest idiot...  Well I'm still and idiot, I confess to know nothing, but maybe not the biggest.... :lol:

I'll try bending the IC's legs around.

[Rick]

" Jimbo wrote...   (sorry gotta' learn the proper clone msg feature)

Don't solder it to the copper side!
Take the IC and bend the connectors to face the other side of the IC. That means, the IC is upside down but the legs are facing towards the board. That allows you to mount it on the right side of the board. Am I making myself clear here? "

This is actually a beautiful solution in theory, and it's thinking outside of the box.
Can't remember if I even considered doing this, but I had at the time
just one LM308 IC for my RAT and bending the leads 180 deg was not
something I would have entertained at that moment. I'm sure it works if done carefully.
I've bent IC leads without breakage at times, but some have broken off
flush with the IC body as well. Any techniques / stories from other
benders ?
...Rick

[ErikMiller]

If you HAVEN'T done this, or mirror-etched a board, or meticulously soldered up a 1/4" phone plug to a cord with the barrel sitting on the bench instead of threaded onto the cord....you haven't been doing the hobby enough.

[Paul Marossy]

or meticulously soldered up a 1/4" phone plug to a cord with the barrel sitting on the bench instead of threaded onto the cord....you haven't been doing the hobby enough.

Ugh! I hate it when I do that!  :x  I've done that probably half a dozen times.  :oops: