pedal building motivation .... gone

[add4]

Nothing brings down creativity like having to spend time setting up, and by the time you're set up, you've lost the mojo you were feeling.

change that last part with "by the time you're set up, you have to take care of one of the kids who woke up, or are too tired to think straight"
but yeah, you got the idea

[Luke51411]

That would definitely put a damper on things. As sad as it is I feel like there have been times in my life when my guitar being in its case put away in the closet was enough of a barrier for me to not play... Either that or it was just out of sight out of mind.

[add4]

Luckily, I still haven't managed to stop playing guitar it's kinda compulsive right now.


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[madbean]

IMO, it's not a big thing. You will come back to it when you are ready. It's different if it's your job...then you gotta power through sometimes. But, hobbies are meant to be fun and fulfilling, not work. Shit, I lose motivation every couple of months for a few days. It's just part of life. But, then it comes back on its own without forcing it. I just let my brain cycle through whatever is bothering me about it then start fresh.

Best part of a hobby or a passion is it will always be there for you. You don't have to impose some kind of "accomplishment metric" on yourself...that's just too stressful!

[Tremster]

I'm glad this topic is coming up, I've been meaning to start a thread like that.

When I got into DIY it was just for the fun of it, out of curiosity. I just wanted to see if I could do it, not knowing anything about electronics. My first pedal was a Red Llama from a kit. I got it to work, though housing and wiring caused a lot of cursing.
A second kit followed, and by and by I got bitten by the addiction really hard, wanting to build most of the classics, stocking up really well on parts. Sold almost all of my production pedals, and built a lot of the classics, whether I needed them or not. Those that I didn't like I mostly sold, luckily almost always found a buyer, so the expenses were manageable.

What I really, really love about it is not primarily the sounds of the finished pedals, or their usefulness on the board(s), or simply the possession of them all. What I really enjoy most is just simply the Zen aspect of it: sitting by the desk, listening to some long feature on the radio, maybe have a beer, and populate a PCB. Also, since I haven't played in a band in three years, it's a way of telling myself I'm somehow still musically active. Although, with all the soldering going on, I hardly even play at home by myself, if not for testing pedals.
And the satisfaction when testing a pedal and it works is huge.

And here comes the bad part. My wiring has gotten ok, I have built many dozens of pedals now, I can make 1590a 4-knobbers. But still, every third or fourth build just does not work. And the disappointment is really, really big.
For me, nothing has changed from pedal one. I still hardly understand anything about electronics, still all I do is just painting by numbers. And, worse, I don't even much care to learn what a capacitor does and how a transistor works, the technical side just isn't of much interest, I'm afraid. I just enjoy sitting by the desk sometimes, and then go out and do something else. And I feel really embarrassed saying this here on this forum of DIY geniuses that have helped me so much.
There also is no rule of which pedals work and which don't. I made a Multiplex, a Stage Fright, and a Space Harp, rather complicated builds, and they work without any problems. And then there's some simple booster and I can't get it to work. And Klons especially, that one is my nemesis ...
That is the most disappointing thing. And the disappointment, it seems, is starting to overweigh the joy in it.

After the beginning stage I just had to build everything, like Juansolo says above. Madbean or someone else came out with a new project, and I just ordered them all. Haven't done that in a while. Now I just want to finish the list of pedals that I really want, and then I'll throw in the towel when that's done. That is the stage I'm in right now. I desperately want to get the 20-30 or so going that are on the pile of fail, but I have no idea how. Possibly the mistakes aren't that big, most of them at least have some signal, but no drive, or very low output, or one switch position works, the other one doesn't, stuff like that, but the confidence for debugging is really low, especially since I never started doing it properly. I have an audio probe, and I can measure voltages, but have no idea what to do with them. I actually want to ask you guys "Please debug this for me because I can't" and not "What do I do next to debug this", that's how much I loathe it, or fear it. In other aspects of life I don't run away when there's a problem, so what does that say?!

Maybe, maybe my opinion will change, since I do enjoy populating so much, and I'll build the occasional fuzz every now and then. But at the moment it seems I need a break soon and do something else for a bit.

[Luke51411]

Tremster, for me I don't really like debugging either and circuits that I'm only mildly enthusiastic about get thrown on the pile if they don't work at first. However, for me sitting down and debugging or tweaking is really rewarding when you are finally able to get the pedal working and sounding great. I had a stretch where I built 3 or 4 veros in a row that fired right up and then had a few pcbs I couldn't get to work which seems odd since there is more that can go wrong with vero... but it happens. It's nice to reach that moment where the lightbulb goes on and you understand why its not working though its a bit humbling when you realize it was a dumb little mistake you've made many times before and swore you would never overlook again...
Really it's all about where you get a sense of joy or accomplishment or sonic destruction or whatever it is you are after in embarking on this hobby.

I'm also getting to the point now where part of the joy is in other people experiencing my builds whether it be aesthetically or sonically to the point where I'm seeking out a few of my musician friends that I haven't been in touch with for a while to send them a build.

[drolo]

@ tremster

I don't think there is any shame to what you are doing. It's quite a process going from nothing to understanding how a circuit works, without having any specific electronics education.

I get quite obsessed when something does not work, and I mean OBSESSED.

This obsession to find out why things don't work eventually got me into an IT job when I have never had any IT education nor even cared about computers much. I learned how to deal with PC's because I just had to find out how to make those freaking sonofab***** work :-)

I got OK at troubleshooting circuits and it's indeed great when you find the culprit but these days I am often trying to just let things go before I start losing too much time on something that doesn't work. When I have done the regular debugging and pondered about what could be wrong I sometimes decide to lay it aside. It just saves so much time that you can allocate to something more useful. Even starting the same thing from scratch. You can always come back to a failed project and try to revive it.

[thesameage]

I'm a total nomad. With two kids and no workspace, I have to set it up and tear it down every night. Kind of drags me down and scatters everything! If I had a dedicated space, I could get better organized and just get it down. Right now I'm fighting the current. I feel for you!

[Luke51411]

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to say there is anything wrong with the way Tremster does things, I hope it didn't come off that way

[drolo]

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to say there is anything wrong with the way Tremster does things, I hope it didn't come off that way

No not at all, as a matter of fact I was writing my reply at the same time as you :-)

[raulduke]

Maybe one of these should be provided to all new fathers as a freebie from the state as a 'support aid':

[selfdestroyer]

Like others on here, I am a project guy. I always have something going on around me, sometimes the hard part is to pick what hobby I want to work on at that moment. I tend to have seasonal hobbies also, helps with the what hobby I want to work on at that moment" problem. The wife and I are both homebodies and do not have many friends in our area that we do things with. Its not uncommon for us to stay in the house all week other than me going to work. Fridays, I have a standing visit with my parents where my dad and I will try out new pedals or work on a song and my mom and I watch movies and chat. Its a nice decompression time away from the house but still incorporating everything I love, family and music. My dad and I also do landscape photography and that hobby really comes and goes and the weather really plays a big part in that hobby. I have a very supportive wife that will let me move my work bench from the garage to the kitchen table (which seems to be a catch all for mail and crap throughout the week and NEVER used to eat on lol) when the valley heat is over 100 degrees. Motivation is always a battle but it seems there is always something to do, even if it is just watching TV or enjoying a nice drink with the wife.

I don't have kids so I really can't speak on that but, there is time that I include my very creative wife on projects and ask for her help with painting or "approving" artwork. Maybe including the kids/family on the build process might help move things along some.

Box o' fail:
Mine was out of control also, not all were complete fails but they just did not sound correct to me. I actually used a 4 day vacation around Xmas to do nothing but troubleshoot. I would put a piece of paper with each failed build and write down the voltages and what steps I have tried to fix it. It really makes you hone your troubleshooting skills when you have to do it 10-15 times in a row. Whats cool is, sometimes 1 fix will actually be the fix for 3 or 4 circuits since it could be a repeated mistake. I see the box of fail the same as any other hobby of mine, I take bad photos all the time and hold on to some to try to fix in post processing ect...

Side note: When I first got into this hobby I found that I had to jump on every PCB release since they were all limited runs. These days, projects are sticking around much longer and boards are always floating around. What I'm getting at is, you can MIA for a period of time and not really "miss" out on anything. It will all be here when you gain interest again.

Cody

[Luke51411]

@Selfdestroyer are you me? Haha. I don't go out a lot or have many friends, my table is full of mail and I never eat at it, I used to be more into photography though I haven't done much lately (I went to school for film and video production but now work in aviation)
As to multiple hobbies, I have gardened, built cigar box guitars, made maple syrup, and I have a beer brewing kit in the closet that hasn't been used yet.

[GermanCdn]

My $0.02.

A hiatus can be good for you.  I built a little bit over Christmas, but really haven't built much since the summer for two reasons.  1)  Real life is far too busy and 2) I've built pretty much every existing circuit out there.

However, I haven't lost the drive or the passion for it, the builds I finished over Christmas (particularly the Moodring and Sparklehorn) got me excited like I got back when I first started building.  Dirtbaby arrived this week, I'll try and have it built by summer at this rate .

As far as the disappointment thing goes Tremster, honestly, the best way to get around it is to sometimes throw it in the Box of Fail and maybe never get around to debugging it.  I have three Stage Frights that I've either tried to tweak and therefore wrecked, worked on the test rig, got around to boxing, didn't work anymore, etc, etc, etc.  When I get one working, I'll name it the Albatross Phaser.

TLDR - It's a hobby.  It's perfectly all right to walk away from it for a week, a month, or a year.  You likely will find the passion for it again down the road, and when you do, the biggest problem you'll find is that you forget which lug is 1 and which is 3 on the pots.