After all these years...

[frokost]

After all these years... I finally cracked Mark Hammer's password  .

Seriously: Wiring pots. I don't know which lug is which. If the purpose of the pot isn't obvious (like when one end goes to ground) and the schematic isn't marked with lug numbers, I'm helpless and destined to wire something backwards.

Another classic - installing jacks and soldering them up with the enclosure upside down, only to discover that they're on the wrong side when turning it back.

EDIT: Not to mention soldering wires to things like LED bezels and power connectors, only to realize that the nut is to be screwed on from the inside and everything has to be done all over again.

[runmikeyrun]

I still make stupid mistakes because i work too many hours in a row.  My eyes and brain get tired and i'll sit there going "NOW WHAT THE F--- IS WRONG?!?!!?"  When i've forgotten to plug the cable or battery back in because i am so tired.

[PerroGrande]

Okay -- since we're all in the mood to enter the confessional...

After all these years:

...I still tend to wire pots backwards due to my mild dyslexia and less mild laziness

...I will occasionally go brain-dead on a simple circuit -- typically something with BJTs

...when evaluating a circuit board in my "universal true-bypass test box", I reverse the output and input leads

...I always have to re-think the "stereo jack as power switch" trick

and, perhaps most embarrassing of all:

...I start to feel a little tired after two or three beers...

[ppatchmods]

I can't believe that more seasoned vets still go through the same trials that I go through! arma61, one night I had been working on a pedal for like 3 hours and thought I was finished. I spent an hour trying to troubleshoot why I was getting no power! After about 17 attemps, I look up to find my power supply was getting no power!!!!   I didn't even want to tell my wife...

Mark, I still have a whole baggy of mis-ordered parts like caps that are so big I could use them as ninja stars on an elephant 

Wow...what else can you say?

[Mark Hammer]

Mark, I still have a whole baggy of mis-ordered parts like caps that are so big I could use them as ninja stars on an elephant 

Despite the tremendous convenience that mail-order places like "the two animals" (Mouser and Small Bear) provide, there is a part of me that still likes to actually see the component as I purchase it, just to know what I'm getting myself into.  Obviously, with chips, trannies, diodes, and resistors that is pretty much a non-issue.  With caps, though, it is often a different matter.  I have, on a number of occasions, been going through bins at a retailer's, and said to myself "I need that value, and it is the only kind they have in that value, and it's a great price, but where am I going to fit it?".  There are some electrolytics I have been able to buy in recent years that are wonderfully miniature, almost the same size you see used on soundcards and such.  I have absolutely no idea how to order them.  I simply have to see them.

As for the caps I have that sit in my bins unused, the brunt are caps bought during an era when I had no layouts available and everything was perfed.  Of course, time marched on, cap technology and layout availability changed, and those caps sit on the sidelines like guys with big thick fingers in the Blackberry era.

Incidentally, anyone have a pinout for one of these? http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/audio/super_ic-12.htm  Mine sits on a board, awaiting installation, like one of those broken-hearted girls from the folksongs, whose lover was a sailor lost at sea, and she stands at the edge of the cliffs forever awaiting his return.  I think the documentation is in one of the many boxes in my basement where I unceremoniously dumped the contents of drawers into a box for yet another cross-country move.  I was hoping to find it again in my lifetime.  That was when I was on the other side of 50.

[johnadon]

+1 on pots. I have to meter the damned things every time to figure out which end is which and I STILL wire them backwards an embarrassing percentage of the time.

[The French connection]

Well, you know something buddy?  Even the Queen and the Pope and the President accidentally poke their fingernail through the toilet paper once in a while. ..

Nah! I`m pretty sure the Queen has someone do it for her. 

Correct!  and I dont think she uses toilet paper, I think she uses a swan or similar majestic water fowl.

I think she use Canadian dollar because she's pretty onerous each time she comes around! Why all you Commonwealth dude are still devote to this money leech's?

Sorry for that OT but:

''after all these years...i'm still angry about the last referendum'' 

Dan the frog.

[newfish]

After all these months (not years!) ...

I still can't get myself organised to finish a pedal, unless I have a 2 month head start.

Workbench is littered with ready-etched PCBs (I've left the ink on in an attempt to stave off oxidisation).

More hours in the day please.

I'm not sure about Her Madge and the Swan thing.
It's some sort of criminal offence to injure a Swan, as they're a "protected royal bird" - much like the lady herself...

"Jeeves, Come quickly!  One's finger has slipped again..."

[David]

I ain't got nothin' to confess!   

Well, actually I do, but I want a lawyer!
ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT!  I'LL TALK!  I couldn't build the beginner project.   

[Rodgre]

After all these years....

I still have trouble drilling boxes with professional accuracy ("patience, young Skywalker")

I think the root of all of my problems is patience. I can never seem to trust the last three or four steps in building a project because I get so impatient at the end, that I tack-solder some of the most important connections.

I also have a habit of trying to cram too much onto the smallest board. If I just take a step back, deep breath, and build something up with a little wiggle room, it's so much easier to follow the path if/when I have to troubleshoot.

I can NEVER remember the lug-numbering of a pot when I read a schematic and more often than not, I wire up my pots backward the first time.

Roger

[petemoore]

  I feel like I can 'feel' the math good enough to ballpark stuff then adjust if necessary.
  I wish I just had math whiz experience so I could have a reference by which to judge the validity of my feelings about it.
  I feel like a have a valid visualization of what happens inside a transistor sometimes, if I ponder and load [all this 'stuff' up, in my mind], and wonder how accurate these abstractions are to what actually goes on [in a visualization sense] inside a biased transistor when it is amplifying.
  And wonder if my 'cartoons' [imaginative abstractions] have any bit in them that mimic the actual 'what electrons do when...' business.

[Mark Hammer]

"Jeeves, Come quickly!  One's finger has slipped again..."

Luv it!


RE: The pot thing

Just look at the front of the pot and ask yourself "As I move clockwise, where is the wiper going to?".  If it is going away from ground, then less signal is being bled off.

[WGTP]

After all these years, I still can't understand my (ex)wife... whoops wrong forum.   

I still can't make myself learn some real electronic theory (like about op amps) and would rather sit and tweak myself into oblivion than really finish the boxes, or for that matter really write some songs and record some music.  I still have trouble spelling too.  

[jacobyjd]

I just drilled a control plate that had to be just right for 6 audio jacks and 1 DC jack, all board mounted.

I drilled all the holes perfectly within tolerance--by hand--in short order.

Then when I went to cut the piece to length (simple hacksaw cut across 1" of sheet aluminum), it was off by at least 5 degrees.

Apparently after all these years I can use a hand drill like nobody's business, but a hacksaw leaves me completely baffled. 

[MikeH]

After all these years (3... rather lot, really.  Monty Python?  Anyone? Anyone??) I still have trouble understanding the math.  Not knowing the math.  I know the math; I just don't understand it.  I can calculate that a circuit has a gain of X, but I have no idea what the hell that actually means!  I know I can calculate current, resistance, and potential voltage drop using ohms law, but I have no idea how any of them apply to me in a practical sense!

That and backwards pots, impedance, crooked holes, and being too lazy to look up the transistor pin-out ahead of time.

ps- Mark Hammer:  Best confession ever!

[Ben N]

I still get flumoxed by emitters & collectors & sources & drains. "Lions & tigers & bears, oh my...."

[alteredsounds]

diodes! glad someone else mentioned that, i have a mental block that i cant explain, every single time i have to look up which end is which and likewise with leds (same thing i guess).  It just inexplicably drops right from my memory as quickly as i have figured it out. 

i also spent a good hour at the w/e trying to line-up the pointers on 3 knobs, driving me mad just couldnt get it to look right.

My other classic, soldering-up a new lead, PERFECT joint on both ends.... yet again i have forgotton to put the covers for the jacks on the cable first 

[Arn C.]

"After all these years, I still have trouble wiring pots and not marking my finished boards"

I figure I have a 50/50 chance getting the pots wired correctly and with my finished boards, when I go back to repair them I find that I don't know what it is and have to try to figure what circiut it is, some I give up on!

Peace!
Arn C.

[arma61]

My other classic, soldering-up a new lead, PERFECT joint on both ends.... yet again i have forgotton to put the covers for the jacks on the cable first 

          +1 (big like a house) and for me I can say everytime not sometime 




all these "confessions" let me think " what about if we do those things in our real daily job?"






                                           



keep on DIYing m8s

Armando

[Ben N]

My other classic, soldering-up a new lead, PERFECT joint on both ends.... yet again i have forgotton to put the covers for the jacks on the cable first 

Been there, done that... >1x!