Testing!!

Here is my plan for testing:

Connect the battery to the positive 9v and ground on the board, the input and output on the board to the jacks, and connect the ring of the jacks to ground.

I accomplished this using a breadboard. Also, I added the pots and toggle switch to the circuit, but forgot to take pictures. I just soldered them in place according to the schematic.

Testing the circuit at home, hooked up to my guitar and amp.

My theory for why the board isn't working is that I burned out the transistors. Also, I might be using an incorrect method to test it out? I'm not sure, this will require some more research.

Finishing Up The Board and Taking Stuff Out of the Enclosure

Okay, I ordered a new footswitch and jacks online.

I put the socket and IC on these ridiculous extenders. I wish I had done the double link in a better way so the socket could've actually fit right on top. I'm also a bit worried about how all these wires will fit inside the enclosure.

I desoldered what I had on the jacks when they were in the enclosure and added simple red and black wires: red on the tip and black on the ring.

I took all of the stuff out of the enclosure except for the LED and bezel.

In case you didn't believe me.

I Started Offboard Wiring Too Soon

I got excited and started the offboard wiring too soon. I should've stuck with the circuit board and seen it all the way through. I am full of regret.

I wasn't originally planning on testing the thing before enclosing it all up, which was extremely dumb. That planned has currently changed.

After my last post, I took off the socket spider because it is dumb.

Later, hater.

Blurry picture of something.

Added a bunch of extension wires

Bought a new socket. Big moves.

Here's what I had in the enclosure at this point.

I needed to take the pots out of the enclosure so I could connect them to the board.

Tone wire has lugs 2&3 going to ground, so I bent them with pliers and used one wire.

Gain pot has lugs 2&3 going to the same spot on the board, so I did the same.

The volume pot goes to 3 distinct locations (1&2 to different spots on the board, 3 to the 3PDT switch). I wrote down which wire was what so I wouldn't get confused later.

My next time in the lab, two wires broke off. One was the output wire on the switch, the other was one of the IC extension wires. I put that wire right back, but I had a lot of trouble fixing this wire on the switch.

It took forever to get the soldered piece of wire off of the lug.

I suck at soldering so the lug actually fell off of the switch, which I didn't know could even happen.

I got really frustrated after this, so I took a couple of days off.

Offboard Wiring

Now that the board is done, I started doing some offboard stuff.

Screwed on the input jack, output jack, footswitch, toggle switch, and LED bezel. I just manually fastened them with washers and nuts.

The potentiometers had this little tab on them that I broke off using pliers.

Pot with washer and nut.

Fastened the pots in the enclosure.

The DC jack is in there too.

I kind of got caught up and didn't take too many pictures during this part. I began the necessary offboard wiring, starting with the switch and the input/output jacks. At this point, I realized that the circuit board with the stupid socket spider on top is too tall and it doesn't fit in the enclosure. I'm not sure what my solution for this is, I will probably have to take the socket off and replace it with a new one. Then I'll put the socket underneath the switch and have some wires connect it back to the board. Once I fix that, I need to connect the LED to the switch, hook up the power and ground throughout the pedal, and attach the pots to the board.

Suck it, Socket!

Warning: the post contains a lot of bullshit.

So I need to make the socket higher so it fits over the double link.

First I put the socket on a small piece of veroboard.

Added 8 links in the board.

I started to add the socket/board onto the tall links, with some difficulty. Then I realized that having the socket on veroboard connected each pin 1 to pin 5, pin 2 to pin 6, etc. That would mess up the circuit, so I ditched this idea.

I added little spider-leg links to the socket instead.

All this soldering make the left 4 pins fall off of the socket, so soldering all this crap on was difficult.

Installed the socket spider onto the board.

Now I can move on (for now). I finished putting the polyfilm capacitors on.

Back view.

Added the two ceramic capacitors.

Added the 3 electrolytic capacitors.

Set up a heat sink with an alligator clip for soldering the transistors.

Back of the finished board.

Finished board!

The board is done! All of the components are soldered on there.

Starting to Add Capacitors

After putting the resistors on the board, I stared adding capacitors.

I added the 22nF polyfilm capacitor.

At this point, I realized that the socket/IC wasn't going to fit over the double link, so I removed the double link with the intention of putting it on the other side of the board.

Added another capacitor, removed double link.

Adding Resistors

Now that the board is set up, it's time to start adding components.

Added the 18K resistor. I sort of worked my way from left to right, but also I just picked up resistors as they were.

Solder joints on first resistor.

Here's all the resistors! Looking pretty good so far.

Making Cuts and Wire Connections

Next, I need to make cuts in the veroboard to separate some rows into two or three smaller rows. I did this using a drill bit. I would have preferred to have an actual drill, but it worked.

All the holes cut into my veroboard.

The next step is to solder the wire connectors that make multiple rows connected in parallel.

Here is my setup:

Soldering Station.

Solder, wire, and solder sucker.

Neat little holding device.

 I haven't soldered in a while, so I did some practice.

                                      

I'm not very good at it, plus one of the resistors is on the wrong side.

I put one connector on my board before I left for the day. The joint is not really as good as I would have liked, but it'll do. I want to practice some more before I move on, plus my soldering skills will build as I put components on the board.

As you can see, my board is a lot less shiny than the other day. I suspect this is due to the oil from my hands, and I'm not too worried about it.

Update 6/25: I realized I put this link on the wrong side, so I decided to fix it.

Removed the link on the wrong side by re-heating the solder.

I figured I might as well practice some more soldering.

Top: notice the solder joints are improving. They should look like little Hershey's Kisses™.

Some practice links.

Feeling more confident after practice, I re-did the first link.

Top view.

Bottom.

 I added the rest of the 5 links.

Top.

Bottom. The double link really messed things up for me. I don't know if the layout I'm using is designed for a different sized veroboard, but two links were supposed to fit it one hole. That was not gonna happen, so I did this: made a link like this on the bottom of the board. Unfortunately, the socket is supposed to go over the link, so I'm gonna have to make wire extensions on top of it. It's gonna be messy.

I crossed off the links when I added them to the board so I could keep track of what was what.

Note: it can get confusing because the two pictures on the schematic (components vs cuts and connectors) are orientated the same way even though one is a top view and one is a bottom view. You can tell the difference of the location of the cuts in some of the pictures. I just took a lot time to make sure I was putting everything in the right spot.