First build progress - Muroidea

Grubb

Well-known member
Started my first build a couple of months back but had to pause it. Just picking it up now to finish off, can anyone see any obvious issues before I continue? I've never soldered before so would appreciate some expert eyes. Cheers
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Also need to know if I'm supposed to be trimming the legs on the transistor or leaving it? Thanks.
 

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You'll probably want to leave the leads full length until you can test to be sure everything works properly. After that you can trim them down if

Once you're sure it works properly you might want to solder the transistor into the socket, they've been known to fall out.

Your soldering looks good, the square pad just above the "D" in "MUROIDEA" might need to be touched up, but otherwise I don't see any obvious problems.
 
Thank you so much, this is fun. I've got a LGSM here to put together when this is done and then parts for more drive pedals on their way to me. Thanks for making this possible!
 
WOW! That looks really good for a first time solder job. Good fillets, nice flow through and you cleaned the board! Keep it up!
 
You don't really need to socket the 1N5817 above the chip. It's a polarity protection diode and won't really affect the tone unless you put it in backwards. Apart from that all I can do is repeat what everyone else has said - nice work.
 
I'm super-cautious so I socketed everything 😂 I'm sure I'll start to learn what needs it and what doesn't.
 
I'm going to hold off getting too excited until I try to fire it up. I wouldn't mind approximating your upwards trajectory though mate, you've got some nice builds under your belt.
A lot of that is thanks to this community and just building a bunch. Check out the new Auditorium test kit for easy testing of your builds!

board here: https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/pcb365/

parts kit here:
 
Your soldering looks great for your first time doing it. Nice work! Rat's are one of my favorite distortions, too. You're gonna dig it. Good decisionto socket the clipping diodes and chip for future swapping and experimenting.

The Auditorium is really great for testing stuff out before you commit to making a million more connections inside an enclosure. You can get that parts kit fo' free with code "AUDITORIUM" with a $25 purchase.
 
So I bought a drill press and have successfully bored out a hole on my Tayda pre-drilled enclosure that was too small for the LED bezel I had. So far so good.

I've just sat down to solder the footswitch into the breakout board. All of my connections look ok (to me) except the bottom right in this photo. Looks white on the outside. I've reflowed it a couple of times, it looks silver when hot but turns white again when it cools. Should I de-solder and try again?

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I ended up removing the solder and the next connection looked better. But now I have a worse problem I'm not sure how to solve. In starting to do the offboard wiring I was attaching the north end jack and power wires, when a small ball of solder flowed next door into the LED pad. I can't get my solder sucker close enough to the back of the hole to remove it because there's a pot really close. Is there another way to clear the hole? Help please!
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Thanks for the suggestion, I tried it both ways around without luck before posting. I'm thinking I may need to get some solder wick.
 
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