newb with a drive

[maladorusguitar]

ok so i'm 16 and i don't have a clue of what you are saying when you are talking about voltages and stuff.  and timings? ahhh

i have a soldering iron and your basic stuff.  I'm willing to put in hours upon hours working on a pedal.  even though i don't know about voltages and timings and stuff do you think i will be able to build like a ring mod, distortion, fuzz, gain boost or whatever?  I have some momomoney so i can get stuff off of smallbear and off of the store here. 

but the basic question is.... am i getting into something too deep if i'm only 16 and i don't really know about voltages and stuff...?

i took apart an old VCR last night and i got a lot of resistors and other stuff like that from it...haha i'll post some pictures of my findings in a bit.

[Mihkel]

Age doesn't matter.
I suggest you read all the articles at geofex and in the FAQs.

[twabelljr]

    Now is the perfect time to start. Read, read, read all the articles at the links at the top of this page. The WIKI has tons of information. The other sites have even more links to DIY sites with information and photo-essays. Search through this forum for things you are interested in. Take notes. The beginner project here has a great step-by-step procecdure. I was 16 20 years ago, and if I could do it over, I would have definately studied electronics more then and jumped in with both feet. Try it, you'll be glad you did!

[Peter Snowberg]

Welcome to the forum!

We all start somewhere. Don't let that bother you at all.

At the least, you should also get a meter if you don't have one already. That will help by unmeasurable amounts to figure out what's going on. Cheap meters are everywhere these days. Even a basic $10 meter will be worth its weight in gold. I just picked up a cheapo DMM for a friend at Harbor Freight and it was $3.99 with a built-in transistor hFE checker.

Absolutely you can build all kinds of stuff. I would start with either a kit (from SmallBear), or get a pre-etched circuit board from General Guitar Gadgets or Tonepad. The pre-etched board will make life so much easier.

I know you have the iron, but how much soldering have you done so far?  You can put that scrapped VCR to good use by practicing on it. Desolder some parts and try to solder them back up. It's all in practice and developing a feel for the liquid metal. Make sure you focus on applying the heat to the connection, and then let the heated connection melt the solder. (just don't let the PCB get too hot in the process)

If I were you, I would start with something like a boost or a fuzz and work up from there. A ring modulator is going to be a much larger project so save that one for the future.

Don't let the complexity intimidate you too much... it will all become clear in time.

If you run into trouble, you have plenty of people willing to help you in this forum.

Welcome to what has become a serious addiction for may of the folks here. 

[Also Wik]

As for age, I agree with the "it doesnt matter" POV. I'm 16 and have 2 working builds, and am going to start a couple more (built a TS-808 and Bazz Fuss, looking to build an Easy Drive, Electra Dist, and Parallel Universe).

[Mihkel]

Yea, I'm younger than you and even managed to survive building a tube amp 

[rockgardenlove]

I'm 14 and have built 2 pedals

I've made a rangemaster and a fuzzface, both on perfboard.

[maladorusguitar]

wow! thanks a lot Peter and everyone else.  I'll make sure to grab a meter pretty soon and i'm planning on getting a kit from smallbear also.  I've read a lot of picture guides and it has been helping! 
You guys are the greatest!  maybe someday i'll make something as cool as the Z vex pedals with my random 1980's VCR stuff hahahaha.  I'm going to start to practice soldering tomorrow after school!

Later guys.

[Coriolis]

About soldering: Try to practice it, so the proces of heating the component lead (on a resistor for instance), and applying the solder, takes about 5 seconds tops. That is, if you are soldering something to a board (desoldering can take a lot longer and be more frustrating  ).
Anyway, getting it done as fast as possible, is the best way to ensure you don't ruin the component (which we have all done several times at this forum). I know I could have saved myself a lot of grief on my first build if (A): I had known what I was doing (voltages and stuff) (B): I had practised my soldering. Maybe you'll do what I and a lot of others did, and just jump head over heels into your first build, and maybe your technique will be perfect, or your luck, but if it doesn't work, don't worry! Just read what the others told you (and more) and try again. And try again! Then check your circuit against the layout you are building from, and try again! And if you did practise your soldering before starting, maybe the problem is somewhere else (or maybe not, I still get bad solder joints). Even the true veterans here (which I'm not) have to do some debugging, and sometimes the fault is they didn't turn on the amp or whatever...

Welcome!

C

[petemoore]

  Clean tip
  Add fresh, a little 'heat transfer' dab
  push irontip to max footprint size @ solderjoint
  add nuther' heat transfer dab, or two..
  depending on the amount, and placement of what's to be heated to 'solder grabbing temperature'
  to hot metal add [don't continuously add cold adding solder to the joint, allow the heat time transfer to happen] solder enough for structural integrity/full pad 'grab'.
  "Thermal Mass/Heat Transfer"...trick is to get that heat in there, then get the solder to 'there, neatly, with cleanly executed approaches and retreats, touching only what you want touched. Most use a third hand, I think this is because soldering stations are more marketable than describing mount the iron for most of the work, bring the board to it, [like I started doing] then for 'inside box' or other 'access work only, dismount the iron. It takes figureing out a rigid mounting system, so that the iron points at a down angle at least, this means large...but I have the whole mess in a box, with an exhaust fan. Since you're 16 and purporting to be willing to invest hours'n hours, I would recommend spending a couple/few of them ... consider installing some type of fume extractor...I'm not real sure how easy this'd be for you, but I say it, if you have a way to get them outside...I just use a cooling fan/ 4'' tube and exhaust to a crawl space...
   Use sockets for actives and...whatever you'd like to Experiment with unless
  a breadboard is handy.
   
 
 

[Joecool85]

I'm 14 and have built 2 pedals

I've made a rangemaster and a fuzzface, both on perfboard.

Wow, didn't realize you were so young.  Good job man.  When I was 14 I was proud of myself for swapping out some RAM and a new IDE drive in my computer lol.

[Xavier]

I'm 14 and have built 2 pedals

I've made a rangemaster and a fuzzface, both on perfboard.

OFFTOPIC / RANT WARNING

I'm impressed. In my country, 14 year old kids will probably drink as much alcohol and smoke as much pot as they can, let alone thinking about doing something productive with their lives.

At 14, I started playing classical guitar and didn't even know about that little metal boxes.

To you and the 16 old guys here. If I was your father, you'd have all the needed stuff, workbench, meters, soldering stations, everything already . That's very cool.

[maladorusguitar]

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Maladorusguitar/IMGP2081.jpg

Here is a link to some of the stuff i yanked out of the VCR with my needle nose.  It's a bad pic, but if i use the flash it whites everything out.  ahh..
Do you think i could use any of that stuff? haha... might be a bad question.

[Coriolis]

Sure, some of the stuff where the leads aren't cut too short, might be usable. Difficult to see what they are tho'  !

[Joecool85]

Might be able to use some of it, the thing is, from what I can tell, the most expensive part you might have there should be around $0.40, so you could just buy new ones.

**edit**
I should note that there should be some decent size caps in there (at least 1000uF) and those are worth a few bucks, and handy to have around if you are building a power supply or an amp.  Make sure to drain them before you pull them out.  Also, there should be an ok size transformer in there, at least suitable for a pedal board.

[ChamberMonk]

Hi, Im 15 and I know a little about the way circuits and voltagesd work. I took have all the basic equipment,. Just about to check geofex