Tri-Vibe

[bcalla]

Now for the build from hell.

First mistake was deciding that I wanted it oriented vertically.  It wasn't until after drilling that I noticed that the board was too close to the left edge (by a really small amount) and that the jacks wouldn't fit at the top where the holes were drilled.  Crap.

So I widened the holes for the pots & switch to shift the board a little to the right, and used JB Weld to fill the holes at the top.  Because I was finishing the exterior with vinyl labels, I decided to just slap one over the patched holes and not worry about repainting.

Then I tested and boxed it, only to have the toggle switch work intermittently.  Two of the positions would sometimes not work.  I thought I had a short, so I pulled it out of the enclosure and it still misbehaved.  All the solder joints looked good under a magnifier, so I figured the toggle was NG.  Unfortunately I didn't have any more center offs, so I had to wait for my next parts order.  I painfully de-soldered and pulled the toggle, put in the new one and...  same problem.  Then I swapped out the ICs.  Same problem.  So I put it in my 'later' pile and tried to not let it bother me.

Then I read one of Jimi's posts where he couldn't get a pedal working (maybe his Sharkfin?) so he reflowed the solder joints and it worked.  I pulled this one from the 'later' pile, reflowed every solder joint, and FINALLY it worked.  There's a lesson in here about doing the most obvious things first, but I'm not sure I learned it.  We'll see when I run into this kind of build issue again.   

BTW this is a cool pedal.  The board came from Chi-boy.

[jimilee]

Very cool mang! I'm glad I could be inspirational. The one I had issues with was the autowah. The Sharkfin was a whole nother pita. I got a hole I gotta fill on the with some enviro when i do the next enclosure.

[Leevibe]

I'm glad you hung in there and got it working. I really love the look of those graphics.

[lars]

You know what the difference is between amateurs and professionals? They both make mistakes, but professionals know how to fix it. If you hadn't mentioned there were problems with this build, nobody would ever know. Great work all around!

[Cloverleaf]

I really like the layout of the exterior of your Tri-Vibe, very inspirational! Clean insides too, stellar work!
Any chance of a sound clip? Been pondering to build one of these as well