Recent content by z2amiller

I played around with this a bit, trying to make it a unipolar supply (just +9V) which looked reasonable given the clipping diodes in the main gain stage anyway. (caveat: I have no idea what I'm doing) When I simulated it in kicad I got all kinds of trouble, tho, but I'm not sure how much of...

Install KiCad and download a bunch of build docs. Transcribe some schematics and practice doing your own layout! (Start with something easy like a Zendrive clone or a Acapulco Gold clone. (Put that learning to practical use! It's harder for me, at least, to just book read without also Doing...

I learned this the kind-hard way when I replaced the LED inside of one of those kids nightlight ceiling projectors with an addressable RBG LED with a microcontroller to cycle colors. It looked cool up close but would project a distinct red,blue,green shape offset from one another on the ceiling.

Yeah - I mentioned this in my guide - when you're looking for components you can filter on 'Economic'. I've also noticed that with electrolytics, there are some of them that will bump your board to standard assembly. I'm not 100% sure what the reason is, but I suspect that it has something to...

I haven't used the search tool within EasyEDA, but using their parametric search: (https://jlcpcb.com/parts/all-electronic-components - and checking the 'basic' and 'promotional extended' boxes) C6961: TL072CDT C7426: NE5532DR C7433: OP07CDR C7950: LM358DR2G C18229: LM2904DR2G (and a couple...

That's the right way to measure. It does look like your chip is not getting power, and as a matter of fact nothing may be getting power. +1 to checking the jack wiring and/or the reverse polarity protection diode. (D1) Eyeballing the circuit, you should be getting pin1-3: ~4.5V +/- 1v...

Looks awesome! Stick with the SOIC-8's vs SOP-8's, I misspoke in the original post - it's all SOIC-8 that are the 'basic' op-amps. For the Q-Tune I imagine you're probably assembling enough of these ( >= 50 ) that you're into 'Standard' assembly anyway so you don't need to worry as much about...

Yep - I listed it in my guide, it's the Bouni plugin for Kicad. It lets you do the parts assignment as a separate step.

I think it's this -- that once you've added the first through-hole part, you're paying $3.50 setup fee and then per-joint for as many other through-hole components that you have. There might be some caveats with oddball parts that push the design into a 'standard' assembly but I haven't run...

Ah - yeah sometimes the components do dumb things and get rotated. My upload/export plugin corrects some of the rotations automatically but doesn't always catch everything. You can select it and then rotate it w/ the space bar until it sits right. Make sure you check the orientation of other...

Honestly, those tips don't look too bad and it sounds like you're keeping them clean. It's possible that they're garbage tier and the tinning isn't taking. You might be keeping them _too_ clean - you want a little bit of melted solder on the tip, the melted solder helps to melt other solder...

You should send us some pictures of your tip. Just the tip. The soldering looks pretty good. A proper solder joint basically looks just like a Hershey's Kiss. You might add a touch more solder, and/or add some flux. I really like using the Stirri Tacky Flux (I use the UHF, the 30g...

Looks good! The back will be a lot less broken up now. You might be able to spread the top row of resistors apart just a tad to get another trace or two between them rather than on the back. But maybe gilding the lily here. One thing I notice that some people will point out is the 90 degree...

Nice! I'm no expert so take all of this with a grain of salt. I also mostly route SMD layouts but I think most of the advice will hold. Some specific feedback: - Kicad's default track width is soooo smol. Even with SMD components I try to keep my trace width at 0.5mm instead of the default...

Where did you get the 2N5457s? Unfortunately these are pretty regularly (intentionally) mislabeled/counterfeited on amazon/ebay/aliexpress/etc. They're really only safe to get at the guitar pedal community type sites (small bear, stompboxparts, aionfx, ppcb, etc) or in SMD form from...