What’s on *YOUR* workbench?

andare said:
Trying to box up the Low Tide has been terrible today. There's no space vertically - a 1590BB is too short - and my drilling is ok but the faceplate compounds any imperfection. Tomorrow I have to drill all the pot holes larger because there's no way 6 pots are gonna fit. And don't get me started on the LED. I have no idea how I'm going to make it snap into the lens.

Honestly I thought of hanging up the soldering iron for good today. It's been a few years and I still struggle with drilling, wiring etc. I can't stand how small and fiddly everything is. Clearly this hobby is not for me.

I think I'll stop building with PCBs and only focus on occasional fuzz pedals in humongous enclosures with gigantic components and hardware only.
Plus what's the point of building more stuff? It's not like I'm selling anything. I'm just spending money on effects I'll never use.

Ok I'll tune back in when I'm less angry and bummed out.
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Maybe a bit late now, but for the future, if you use the faceplate to hold the pots when you solder them, they’ll be perfectly aligned. You can do the same with the enclosure. It makes sure any drilling offset doesn’t really matter.
 
szukalski said:
Maybe a bit late now, but for the future, if you use the faceplate to hold the pots when you solder them, they’ll be perfectly aligned. You can do the same with the enclosure. It makes sure any drilling offset doesn’t really matter.
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That's exactly what I did but I had to tilt the board to leave space for the DC jack so it's pretty crooked. I can mount it but it's very tight.
 
andare said:
Trying to box up the Low Tide has been terrible today. There's no space vertically - a 1590BB is too short - and my drilling is ok but the faceplate compounds any imperfection. Tomorrow I have to drill all the pot holes larger because there's no way 6 pots are gonna fit. And don't get me started on the LED. I have no idea how I'm going to make it snap into the lens.

Honestly I thought of hanging up the soldering iron for good today. It's been a few years and I still struggle with drilling, wiring etc. I can't stand how small and fiddly everything is. Clearly this hobby is not for me.

I think I'll stop building with PCBs and only focus on occasional fuzz pedals in humongous enclosures with gigantic components and hardware only.
Plus what's the point of building more stuff? It's not like I'm selling anything. I'm just spending money on effects I'll never use.

Ok I'll tune back in when I'm less angry and bummed out.
Click to expand...
I think it's understandable to stop doing something if it brings you less joy than the effort and frustration that come with it.

That being said, I haven't drilled a single hole the whole time I've been doing this since I get mine from Tayda pre-drilled.

That being said, I again had to enlarge the rotary switch hole on that last build, and move it towards the center to get the pots aligned, plus the only 2P6T rotary switch I found had a tall shaft so I had to cut that down with a knife too (I use an old knife for making the holes larger now, aluminum is quite soft so it works out ok, much easier on my wrists than manual filing would be).

Like we say in Finland, "it did not go like in Strömsö" (a DIY TV show).

...not sure how well that translates internationally.
 
andare said:
Trying to box up the Low Tide has been terrible today. There's no space vertically - a 1590BB is too short - and my drilling is ok but the faceplate compounds any imperfection. Tomorrow I have to drill all the pot holes larger because there's no way 6 pots are gonna fit. And don't get me started on the LED. I have no idea how I'm going to make it snap into the lens.

Honestly I thought of hanging up the soldering iron for good today. It's been a few years and I still struggle with drilling, wiring etc. I can't stand how small and fiddly everything is. Clearly this hobby is not for me.

I think I'll stop building with PCBs and only focus on occasional fuzz pedals in humongous enclosures with gigantic components and hardware only.
Plus what's the point of building more stuff? It's not like I'm selling anything. I'm just spending money on effects I'll never use.

Ok I'll tune back in when I'm less angry and bummed out.
Click to expand...
No shame in setting it aside and ordering a big ass enclosure. Seeing this one through should prove to be rewarding. Mine didn't go smoothly at all and the process of getting it working is what brought me to this forum in the first place.

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Thanks everybody for the kind words.

I boxed it up and...the LED is always on - can't understand why - and the pedal does nothing, even after turning the trimpots :)
Bypass works, Level works, Mix tuns the volume down as I turn it up - clearly there's no wet signal being generated in the pedal. The other knobs do almost nothing.

I'll see if it makes sense to post in the Troubleshooting forum. I need to do a visual inspection, reflow some joints and really think about a few crucial steps first.

EDIT: The damn footswitch always has lugs 4 and 5 connected. It's the second one I find like that. No wonder the LED is always on. Is it possible I did that while soldering?
Also gonna try another MN3207
 
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andare said:
Trying to box up the Low Tide has been terrible today. There's no space vertically - a 1590BB is too short - and my drilling is ok but the faceplate compounds any imperfection. Tomorrow I have to drill all the pot holes larger because there's no way 6 pots are gonna fit. And don't get me started on the LED. I have no idea how I'm going to make it snap into the lens.

Honestly I thought of hanging up the soldering iron for good today. It's been a few years and I still struggle with drilling, wiring etc. I can't stand how small and fiddly everything is. Clearly this hobby is not for me.

I think I'll stop building with PCBs and only focus on occasional fuzz pedals in humongous enclosures with gigantic components and hardware only.
Plus what's the point of building more stuff? It's not like I'm selling anything. I'm just spending money on effects I'll never use.

Ok I'll tune back in when I'm less angry and bummed out.
Click to expand...
I can well relate to ALL that.

I had the exact same experience with a BYOC project just a few months back. Two footswitches, so two LEDs. If you follow the assembly instructions, you wind up having one LED go in its hole, and the other one just hits the enclosure and bends the legs; out it all comes to straighten the LED legs — I was even using the coffee stir-stick trick of Cybercow's to get the LEDs situated, but it didn't work.

I was so frustrated and ANGRY, I seriously thought of quitting right then and there, and in a way I did.

I was so pissed-off I clipped the LEDs' leads and mounted the ****ers right to the board, then discovered the pre-drilled holes for the footswitches were mis-aligned. That's when I quit. I made a post on the forum similar to yours.

Two weeks ago I enlarged the footswitch holes so that at least the PCB would fit (the pre-drilled holes were misaligned, possibly the cause of the LED frustration? I enlarged the LED holes and put in Fresnel lenses so the board-mounted LEDs might shine through the correct holes and not their neighbour's. I enlarged one of them too much so the Fresnel lense rattles around and falls out. So I added tape to it to hold it in place (probably need to glue it. I had to put the thing down again.
The BYOC-kit was something I had laying around but never got to; it was supposed to be an EASY-WIN that I needed from having other build-frustrations.

I'm still borking drilling even with a drill-press and drill-template; I want decent graphics, but lack the skills and computer-software savvy to have them...

I just recently found my Low Tide (was lost in the move shuffle), and I need to trouble-shoot it. Tried to cram in a large DC-jack, and solder legs to a tab dual-gang 'cause that's all I had at the time. It's a super-fiddly build, but even that one wasn't as bad as the pre-drilled BYOC kit, in terms of frustration.

I give away builds that work to friends (and some that wound up not working), never sell stuff (who'd buy it?), and I have a growing mound of stuff to troubleshoot... I can't find my post where I was going to quit, but it's still on the forum somewhere.


I built an amp and it works. Lots of room for my big hands. Thick-gauge wire, a little less fiddly than pedals...


So I've been easing back into building pedals, but been doing a lot of car stuff lately and haven't had time for pedals, TBH.



Maybe check out the More Jokes thread for some comic relief, or the JB Weld thread.

Anyway. You're not alone...
 
You have heard about magic diodes and NOS germanium transistors, but have you heard about... up angled power jacks!?!?
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Peekaboo!

So I did a dumb thing and used a larger power jack (because I also have some of the larger ones) sized hole on the enclosure, and a large DC jack wouldn't fit at all. I sort of got the smaller DC jack to fit, but it's actually held there by the nut, and a washer that is behind the PCB. So it's sort of wedge in between the PCB and the enclosure. I dare not post gut shots lest someone have a heart attack or something.

But it works, sounds nice except that it pops really loudly if the gate control is turned up, so I'll have to do some more troubleshooting. Some other people seem to have had the same issue, so not sure what that's about. Is my gate trimmer set too high? I do get a good range of "no sound", "low passed envelope filter" to "completely clear signal", just that it pops really loudly when I don't play for a bit and then strum something.

But at least it looks really nice, and I accidentally did a very cool thing with the LED, but I'll show it off better once I get it fully working.

Edit: I tweaked the gate trimmer and the popping is much less obvious - but it's still there a little bit unless I enable the gate effect itself. I don't think that's quite normal, is it? My DIP switch might be the wrong way around (at least it looks the opposite to MichaelW's), but I don't think that should make a difference, right? If I put "Boost" on the side that says "On" then I get a boost. Currently running "Pad" enabled and "Boost" disabled since it's in the FX loop of the QC.
 
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andare said:
Thanks everybody for the kind words.

I boxed it up and...the LED is always on - can't understand why - and the pedal does nothing, even after turning the trimpots :)
Bypass works, Level works, Mix tuns the volume down as I turn it up - clearly there's no wet signal being generated in the pedal. The other knobs do almost nothing.

I'll see if it makes sense to post in the Troubleshooting forum. I need to do a visual inspection, reflow some joints and really think about a few crucial steps first.

EDIT: The damn footswitch always has lugs 4 and 5 connected. It's the second one I find like that. No wonder the LED is always on. Is it possible I did that while soldering?
Also gonna try another MN3207
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I looked through the Low Tide related threads on the forums to see if there were any tips about popping, one thing to check is that your pots are not shorting out on the board, a few people had no wet signal because one of their pots was shorting out. Although I think they got a dry signal instead where the wet should be, while it sounds like you get nothing, so it could be a different thing. Worth double checking all the IC and transistor orientations too (and the voltage regulator). But definitely post a troubleshooting thread once you're done!

I've never had a bad footswitch yet, I think I've read it's possible to overheat them... but it's not very easy I think? Where are you getting the footswitches from?
 
Fama said:
I looked through the Low Tide related threads on the forums to see if there were any tips about popping, one thing to check is that your pots are not shorting out on the board, a few people had no wet signal because one of their pots was shorting out. Although I think they got a dry signal instead where the wet should be, while it sounds like you get nothing, so it could be a different thing. Worth double checking all the IC and transistor orientations too (and the voltage regulator). But definitely post a troubleshooting thread once you're done!

I've never had a bad footswitch yet, I think I've read it's possible to overheat them... but it's not very easy I think? Where are you getting the footswitches from?
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I was going to use pot condoms and the pot isolator from PedalPCB on the double gang pot, however there was no vertical space in the enclosure so I ended up using electrical tape. I made sure there were no shorts before mounting the board to the enclosure + faceplate and soldering them. But who knows if they're touching once squeezed inside the enclosure?

I got footswitches from this Polish store amptone.pl -haven't had issues before

I have burned toggle switches before. Now I always make sure not to use too much solder on the lugs and usually wait a few minutes between lugs.
I have a new batch of footswitches from Daier in China to try now.
 
andare said:
I was going to use pot condoms and the pot isolator from PedalPCB on the double gang pot, however there was no vertical space in the enclosure so I ended up using electrical tape. I made sure there were no shorts before mounting the board to the enclosure + faceplate and soldering them. But who knows if they're touching once squeezed inside the enclosure?

I got footswitches from this Polish store amptone.pl -haven't had issues before

I have burned toggle switches before. Now I always make sure not to use too much solder on the lugs and usually wait a few minutes between lugs.
I have a new batch of footswitches from Daier in China to try now.
Click to expand...
Any time I'm lifting pads, I turn the iron down. Perhaps some stiff plastic can wedge in between instead of tape. Etape doesn't work for condom.
 
My bad streak is getting longer.

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This is a simple germanium Fuzz Face and my first ever commission.
It worked great on the breadboard, worked great on the eyelet board. Today I boxed it up and it's gated. It sounds amazing with the guitar at 10 but when I roll it off it has a farty cleanup, consistent with the gating.

The Power supply through the 1044 reads -8.8. Q1c -0.68, Q2c -4.98. Pretty standard, I biased it a bit higher for more brightness. Input cap is 220n, volume pot 250k.

I haven't touched the transistors at all. Is it possible they're acting up? My other Ge FF sounds great.

200w.gif

Anyway I called my friend and told him it's amateur hour here. He was kind enough to say when I have one that works well he'll buy it.
 
Designed a few holding jigs for 125B enclosures and the back plates for my CNC then used the jigs to cut some boxes and engrave some back plates.

Also sprayed a test box with some Chameleon Teal powder coat. It is friggin beautiful. Got some of that Gojira from Prismatic Powders I’ve been waiting to try out too. Just need more good weather. 39CBBFB7-AA8B-4C05-83AA-C68C99B048E1.jpeg A3F9DFEF-E7E7-4BF3-AB3F-E5AB5C8BAA35.jpeg AB4E266D-413C-4D3F-998D-4F432D90E598.jpeg
 
Ok i just finished the dry box!

That cavity in front of the small heater is where the dehumidifier goes! I used a liner around the door frame to not allow unwanted light to come in. Even the fan pulling air out has the same liner around it for the same reasons.

I did a quick test to see the conditions on the inside. I put a hydrometer to record the humidity and temperature. At 20 min of everything running I got the humidity down to 24.6%. For reference, when drying screens you want to be in the 30 - 40 percent humidity mark. I'm well under that mark. Which means faster drying times. I also got the box to an inside temp of 111.3 degrees Fahrenheit. My aim is to get drying times under an hour, so i can coat the screens, Dry them, and burn the image all in one day. Im very impressed with it again its not a looker but performance wise this is doing everything i want it to do and more! Cant wait to put this thing to real test!
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