What’s on *YOUR* workbench?

I had a couple of extra SMD TL072s, so I decided to practice soldering them to DIP-8 adaptor boards. And then soldering clipped resistor legs to the adaptor boards so I can socket them.

Worked. Had to reflow the solder on one of them, though. But they're both now working happily in my Kliché.

Next on the agenda: soldering a couple of SMD 072s direct to a PCB.
 

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OH! Where did you find those adapter boards? I need some for J201's.

Had the pre-soldered SMD J201s in my cart from Amplified Parts but they sold out while I was double checking if I had all the parts I needed from multiple shops. Seems to happen every time...
They're in the PedalPCB shop
 
A shot of good liquor would help the tremors!

In a serious note, my Dad, who is a EE, said that they used to use a tiny dab of hot glue on SMD and then solder it. The glue is easily stripped after soldering. My problem is that my glue would dab too much glue!
As true as that may be, I'm a recovering alcoholic, so that's a no go for me 😅

I was considering some type of glue, but I hate dealing with the mess. I have a syringe of fairly dense solder paste somewhere and that should work
 
Won't the compressor work differently at different supply voltages? With all those clamping diodes having more or less work to do? Thinking of release time etc. I haven't really analyzed it. I think I would have just put a 7809 on the DC input, so you can power it with whatever. Why would it even even benefit from 18V? It kills all headroom by its nature anyway.
Having personally tracing two Ultimatums, analyzing (with what skills I possess) and breadboarding & testing the circuit at all three voltages, the compression/'tape saturation' seems to self-bias for the different voltages. The key seems to be in the VRef designation in the circuit design.
 
Mr. Sushi Box gave me a couple dozen crusty old diodes he got from a buddy. They have flat metal straps as leads and they are pretty chunky so they're a little challenging to connect.

I tested them out in a Special K and they actually sound pretty nice.

I came up with a way to attach leads that keeps the retro vibe.

Going to watch some Netflix and make up a bunch.

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Selenium diodes????
 
As true as that may be, I'm a recovering alcoholic, so that's a no go for me 😅

I was considering some type of glue, but I hate dealing with the mess. I have a syringe of fairly dense solder paste somewhere and that should work
I have not heard of solder paste. I will have to look into that. That option sounds better than globs of goo…
 
This thing... Will stamp, knob, and demo it when I return from lunch.

So far, I'm not disliking it as much as the last few times I built it 🤷‍♂️
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Not last night, but the night before, I stayed up from midnight to 6am-ish to put together a BYOC kit I've neglected for years.
I don't have a theme or name for it yet, still, but another project giving me grief had me going for an easy-win build. I woke up at 7am-ish yesterday sitting in the chair, the hardware still in front of me waiting to be soldered and nutted...

So I called it a day since I'd hit the wall and then went to bed and slept to 5:30pm.

This is not how to build pedals, folks. I don't recommend it. I should've quit and gone to bed after finishing sorting the resistors or at least after having soldered them, but I just kept going. Now my sleep regimen is screwed up and it's nearly 5:30am again 'cause I watched movies all night instead of finishing the pedal. Shuteye, then later today I'll finish the BYOC and get back to trouble-shooting my Station Wah.



Oh, and another thing... glue was mentioned earlier — a little dab on some wax paper or cardboard whatever, then take a really sharp toothpick to apply it.

'Couple nights ago I glued a plastic milk-tab to the back of my Station Wah to stop the LED leads from shorting out... I did not use a toothpick.
 
Exqueeze my ignorance, sir, what is BYOC? Bring Your Own Capacitors?
Build Your Own Clone.

I got a few kits and PCBs from them when I was starting out. Never built the Flying Pan kit I got 'cause I hadn't come up with a theme for it that I liked; decided to hell with giving it a theme and started building it the other night. The janky enclosures is what prompted me to get just the PCBs, that and sorting through a pile of resistors. Then you have to fathom the PCB's silkscreen 105, 474, 472, 473 types of numbering etc — just put the name of the resistor "R12" or value "47k" on the PCB's silkscreen for crap's sake.
 
Been working on a red llama with junk leftover parts. Switched the cd4049 with a cd4069 smd. Sounds great, but I had to change a few values and remove some parts. Guess the chips aren't exactly the same. Still a bit more noisy than I'd like. Might box it up when I put in another order.
 
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