what are your unsuccessful builds?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

LM380 amps, two of them. Just from application note, less components than fingers in a hand. I double-triple-quadruple checked it but could not get it working. I found the old circuit boards last summer, maybe I´ll try again some day. Or maybe life is too short for that...

AMEN Brother! wasted a lot of time there myself. thinking back, probably layout is critical.
I don't build many designs off the net, but I can make plenty of failed boards all by myself A favorite at one time: exceeding the voltage ratings of cmos chips

Looking over the years at what circuits have the highest % fail rate (as evidenced by good vs bad build reports here) the main offenders are fet biasing probs (because someone is unlucky enough to get fets that are far from the characteristics of the ones used by the designer) or circuits that although working right, aren't what the builder expected. For example, I doubt the 'twang-o-matic' will satisfy anyone expecting a 'twang'.

[Herr Masel]

Everything I've built (except for the ruby) doesn't work right now, I've been redoing it all because initially I used shitty wire that would break, but now they don't work at all! It sucks.

[Steben]

Everything I've built (except for the ruby) doesn't work right now, I've been redoing it all because initially I used shitty wire that would break, but now they don't work at all! It sucks.

Ouch! that hurts.
Are they PCB-based or veroboard?

[Herr Masel]

Just regular perfboard. When I say everything it sounds worse than it is. It basically amounts to the big daddy distortion, EA tremolo, vox tonebender and maybe something else I'm forgetting. There was more stuff but it never left the breadboard.

[ninoman123]

Tonemender from ROG pcb version. Actually I got it working but there was terrible background noise that I just couldnt get rid of.
A Ruby on perf. I think I fried the chip because I did it on breadboard and it worked but the perf ruined it.
The Hammerhead (I think its called that) I started and didnt finish because It was taking too long and I tried a new method of doing it and figured I screwed it up somewhere along the way.


Ive got a 5E3 variation of my own design that works, but has background noise that I need to clean up, but it works and I know what the problem is I just need to find the time to do it.

Oh and I rewired my telecaster and its messed up but thats because I dont have a wiring diagram for the humbucker in it so I just kind of winged it. Heh. That one I can fix too if I wasnt so lazy.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Not to hijack the thread too far, but perf...... I use stripboard for all my proto & one-off, and I wouldn't dream of powering a board up, before using my meter to check for shorts between EVERY adjacent strip pair, and across EVERY break.

[TheBigMan]

Argh, just had a cursary glance over my parallel universe build. I forgot to ground pin 4! 


Hope this one is as good as its reputation.

I met ExpAnonColin at an HCFX gathering earlier this year and tried one.  Not my cup of tea, but it is an insane sounding and very tweakable pedal.  

I also build R.G.'s q&d oscillator using a layout I found on the internet, WITHOUT checking it against the schematic. Well, you learn most from your mistakes  

Wasn't mine was it?  I never have been able to produce a working layout for that, and I can't figure it out.  I must be bad with signal generators, cos I've built Torchy's Signal Injector/Tracer and it doesn't work either at the moment.  

Apart from that I've got a Boss FA-1 clone which works, but has very little gain and the sound cuts out when you lower the bass.  I've never got around to checking the pot wiring though.  

[Mark Hammer]

A pair of 3094 Small Stones have been driving me nuts, as have a pair of 3080-based Piedritas, and a 13600-based Ross phaser.  An A-Gua (MXR Envelope Filter).  I have made other copies of these same things and had them working, but these ones don't want to behave nice for me.

I would have added a Tonepad Corrrral (CE-2) until last night.  Checked everything twice and thrice, but no go.  Then, last night, I found that one of the IC pins (pin 5, IC1) hadn't even been soldered to its pad!  Soldered the pad/pin, fired it up and bingo - chorus.

An Ultraflanger, an Ibanez FL301, and a Zombie Chorus all taunt me.  It's not the chip because the same chip plugged into the CE-2 works fine.

These days, my default strategy revolves around rehabilitating pots.  I'm fond of the 16mm pots, but I suspect they are not fond of me.  Just because they look new doesn't mean they perform flawlessly.  So, I pry the backs off, apply some contact enhancer to the resistive strip, pinch the rivets for the lugs a bit with some needle-nose, and re-assemble the pot.  Less crackle.  More success.

A second issue that I think is getting in the way is the use of cannibalized parts.  I have a LOT of them; enough that I am reticent to buy new parts unless I really cannot find anything in the drawers that has spacing or leads long enough for the board.  The result is that I probably have cold joints all over many of my boards that don't respond top solder reflow.  So, these days I'm scraping away the tarnish off the component leads with my X-acto knife before I solder it.  That's helping.

There are a few things where no layout exists and I'm too lazy to do one myself, but for the most part I am swearing off perfboard unless forced to.  I'm not a diligent enough note-taker, and with the number of interruptions I get in the middle of perfed projects, it is far too easy to lose track of what was and wasn't done on the board.

[Aharon]

Ultra Flanger and Zombie......couldn't get rid of the ticking.
Aharon

[Paul Marossy]

I seem to do quite well, even had most things work right off !

Most of the time, things work for me right from the start, too. Even my very first project, my Freddy Fuzz clone, which is an opamp clipper type of distortion circuit. I would say that I have a 90% success rate. The other 10% on non-working projects bug the heck out of me! 

[goosonique]

So far all except darn Shin-Ei ....tried tons of differant trannies and cant get a decent (oh behave ) fuzz. Lots of premature misadventure tho  Hey i have actually learned more when it doesn't work.... 

[Paul Marossy]

i have actually learned more when it doesn't work....

I have learned a lot by the mistakes that I have made, too. 

[lvs]

I breadboard a circuit (and take that to band rehearsals) before building, and no 4049ube distortion circuit ever got past the breadboarding stage. I tried and tweaked various ones and didn't achieve the growl I expected and always had trouble getting rid of fizz. The 4049s I have all came from the same manufacturer, and I'm gonna get me some from a different one and see what happens.

[Garrett]

PT80 That I'm still tryign to fix. It's one of those that you destroy one component and int the process distroy others.  Plus its a tight board. It worked for a short period of time and then i put it altogether and it blew a voltage regulator. I put a new one in and it heats up fast. I'm not throwing in the towel yet though.

[Doug_H]

Poptronics Leslie Simulator back in 1975.

Doug

[Paul Marossy]

PT80 That I'm still tryign to fix. It's one of those that you destroy one component and int the process distroy others.  Plus its a tight board. It worked for a short period of time and then i put it altogether and it blew a voltage regulator. I put a new one in and it heats up fast. I'm not throwing in the towel yet though.

Did you heat sink the voltage regulator? That's a fairly important detail... 

[Xlrator]

MXR Noise Gate (Tonepad 2002) that I have been going over and over. Has good etch, good solder, and good parts. I can hear faint distorted signal coming through with no pedal on. 

I decided on this one after I ordered all the parts to build the Gaines Noise Gate and it was dead. I thought Tonepad's layout was cleaner and easier. I have been reading old posts by people troubleshooting theirs but then get distracted and end up surfing somewhere else.


I have thousands of parts that I had shipped as samples from a couple years ago. I threw them all into their own parts bins, even if they were by different manufacturers. The JFETs and NPNs had me worried about the pinout orientation and I had to find datasheets on them, only to find they were all the same. 

[Mark Hammer]

MXR Noise Gate (Tonepad 2002) that I have been going over and over. Has good etch, good solder, and good parts. I can hear faint distorted signal coming through with no pedal on. 

I decided on this one after I ordered all the parts to build the Gaines Noise Gate and it was dead. I thought Tonepad's layout was cleaner and easier. I have been reading old posts by people troubleshooting theirs but then get distracted and end up surfing somewhere else.

I have thousands of parts that I had shipped as samples from a couple years ago. I threw them all into their own parts bins, even if they were by different manufacturers. The JFETs and NPNs had me worried about the pinout orientation and I had to find datasheets on them, only to find they were all the same. 

Hmm.  I posted the Gaines Noise gate because I had built it and it worked fine.  A little buzzy unless you up the cap value a tad, but fine nonetheless.

[lovric]

Finally a topic where I can spread my wings

The most unsuccessful and inspite the warnings of the experienced people here is the pnp FF with positive supply to emiters, negative to collectors and ground. One can feel so lost. A long battle gave the 4049 in 3legged dog. It gated so many times taht I consider it working pure luck. 3 legs, big teeth.
Really cheesy wisdom applies:
God, pease give me the strength to pursue the achievable goals
and give me the courage to abandon the unattainable
and give me the wisdom to tell the differnce between the two

[Noplasticrobots]

Almost nothing works the first time I build it! I could never get the Electra distortion to work. Supposedly a great beginner project...
Anything with ICs in it will never work for me. Even things like flashing LEDs running on a 555.