Fighting the urge to give up

I remember when I started, I was so excited and rushed through 2 easy pedals and soldered the IC's upside down with no sockets. :ROFLMAO: It took me weeks (no motivation) to desolder them and get them back together only to hear them making terrible noises because I had wired the input/output backwards.

It takes a few mistakes to learn how to do things right, but by golly is it worth learning. I tried to save a few seconds soldering - and cost myself hours in desoldering and troubleshooting.

Who knows, maybe all your broken pedals just have some crossed wires like some of mine did? I hope you keep trying anyway, I know for a fact when you get your first pedal working it's going to be a happy day for you! Just take your time and never be afraid to ask for help.
 
I do hope he checks in on this message. When I started out, many of the pedals I built, while they worked, didn't work properly.

In fact, one of them, a Boss FZ-2 clone, had a mode that definitely didn't sound right. I didn't know that till much later when I heard a demo and realized that one of the modes didn't sound like mine. I tried diagnosing the issue but never found it. Decided to build a simpler version of the same pedal and threw the other one in my graveyard box.

Out of a good 80 pedals or so that I've built, a good dozen ended up either in the graveyard or thrown aside for debugging later on. Wasn't always successful in debugging...but that's just part the gig. You're gonna fuck up...no question about it. You might do so way early on but it's a learning experience. Dig in and learn from your mistakes...that's how you get the most out of it. It's like that with any skill.
 
GAHHHHH!!!!! ENCOURAGING WORDS!!!!!

SO MUCH HOPE!!!!!!

LIFE IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

NEVER GIVE UP! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!!!

YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL AND UNIQUE FLOWER AND STARFISH COMBINED THAT FLIES ON RAINBOWS!!!!!!


GAHHHHHHHHBBB!!!!!!!!!IEGEJLFBEIENAOEBEVNBWUSNAGG
 
Stickman393 said:
GAHHHHH!!!!! ENCOURAGING WORDS!!!!!

SO MUCH HOPE!!!!!!

LIFE IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

NEVER GIVE UP! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!!!

YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL AND UNIQUE FLOWER AND STARFISH COMBINED THAT FLIES ON RAINBOWS!!!!!!


GAHHHHHHHHBBB!!!!!!!!!IEGEJLFBEIENAOEBEVNBWUSNAGG
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deeep breaths.....in....out.....in.....out.........

there now.........feelin' better?.....gooooood....


Mark it Donnie!
 
The first three or so pedals I attempted to build (LPB-1, Devi Ever Soda Meiser, and Z Vex Super Hard On) on vero board would not work. I was really really frustrated because I had picked some of the lowest parts count circuits to get my feet wet and taken my time slowly building each one only to have it not work. I was getting sound through in bypass mode and my LED would light up when I turned it on, but there was no signal at all when I turned it on. It turns out that I had my 3pdt switch turned sideways because I just assumed that's how it was supposed to be oriented and the diagram I was following didn't make it obvious that the pins needed to be horizontal.

Even once you're more experienced you have little errors sometimes that you have to figure out and it is pretty frustrating. I don't know anyone that actively enjoys troubleshooting, maybe some masochists do :P I've had to learn to deal with offboard wiring, which is my least favorite part of building pedals. I wouldn't say I enjoy it, but I dread it a lot less now that I've done it more.

If you've built that many and none of them have worked you're probably making the same error repeatedly. Everybody here is really helpful and will look over your builds to see if we can help. It may be that one issue that once you figure out it you can go back and fix all those pedals pretty easily.
 
cdwillis said:
..... I don't know anyone that actively enjoys troubleshooting, maybe some masochists do :p I've had to learn to deal with offboard wiring, which is my least favorite part of building pedals. I wouldn't say I enjoy it, but I dread it a lot less now that I've done it more.....
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If and once you manage to find the fault and fix it, there is often a moment of elation, euphoria, ... . So I don't like troubleshooting either, but I like to tie it together with a "joyful" ending to make it feel better. And as you pick up new tricks, your confidence ought to grow a little each time. Just completed a Meatball clone from another maker. It was complex. I had one bad solder found with audio probe (first use) and another, unclear where because I redid the wires to the stomp board after some suspected glitching and it worked. But the pedal is quite complex to dial in. Add a sensitivity to playing, pickups in the mix and it was quite easy to get lost. But I learned how to trace connections better with my DMM, and how to use a looper + audio probe. I still expect it to have some more surprises in for me considering how much it has been like teaching a cat tricks, or handling a 5-year old with a temper...
 
What helped me in learning soldering was buying a "diy digital clock kit" off Amazon. Most of the components are bigger and easier to place and solder. Completing that put me in a position where I knew how to solder and had no problems with pcbs.

It makes me kinda sad that OP might've given up. I've found so much joy and zen in learning about electronics and building stuff, hope they find their way back to it.
 
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I found that starting with a BYOC kit helped alot; looking at how thorough and clear Aion FX documentation is, I would recommend starting there too. I had no soldering experience 6 months ago, so even though kits don't really let you experiment too much, it gave me a much needed confidence boost when I managed to put it together. You'll generally have a much greater chance of success with a kit, rather than sourcing the parts and figuring out the offboard wiring yourself.

So even though I had some issues with later builds (completely wrecked a Chalumeau board), I had the motivation to push through because I knew I was capable of putting together a working pedal.

I will say though, 3 years is a long time. It sounds like there might be something fundamentally wrong with your build process. What sort of issues have you been facing in your builds?
 
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