Welll it's official. I'm in a slump.

[billstein]

I've gone from being able to build all these pedals the Bean classifies as genius builds. Harbinger, Aqua Boy deluxe, Sharkfin, Stage Fright, Low Rider etc. All fired up first time, after I remembered to put the transistors or IC in of course.
Now it seems like I can't build anything. Every stinking pedal fails. Even something simple like a Fatpants.

What the heck!

Rant now officially over. Just had to vent.

[m-Kresol]

Don't worry. You'll get back on track soon enough. I also was rather lucky with my builds, but I also have some issues with finished builds that I don't want to get back to as I find debugging rather a pain in the butt.
On the other hand, I just debugged my first hand-built tube amp. It was a minor thing, still took me some time and now it sounds killer. And for all the others of us, it's good to see that also the pros make (sometimes stupid) mistakes. It's part of the game.

[GermanCdn]

Check your testing rig.  Last time I hit what I perceived was a problem, turned out I had a semi loose connection in my 1590A testing rig (from it falling of the top of my amp so many times most likely).

[selfdestroyer]

Oh man, I definitely feel for you and your situation. I have been there before and it came down to being a few resistor values that were miss labeled and it got me all messed up. I now test 10-20 resistors out of a 200 pack before putting them in my parts bin. Might be a good idea to just sit down at the work bench one day and just plan on testing your back log of parts and make sure you not dealing with wrong values or bad parts.

Cody

[slacker775]

Check your testing rig.  Last time I hit what I perceived was a problem, turned out I had a semi loose connection in my 1590A testing rig (from it falling of the top of my amp so many times most likely).

I had this exact same situation.  All of my first builds were working right out of the box and then I hit a major skid.  I couldn't figure it out until I figured to try around my little testing rig and lo-and-behold, all of my stuff was working just fine.  I never did figure out what went wrong with my testing rig, but I did wind up building up a JMK rig and that has been a godsend.

[icecycle66]

Hey you, get out of my rut.

1 of the last 8 pedals I built worked.
The rest are crap.  Most of them were simple OD pedals too. 

Maybe my solder has expired.

[flanagan0718]

Oh man, I definitely feel for you and your situation. I have been there before and it came down to being a few resistor values that were miss labeled and it got me all messed up. I now test 10-20 resistors out of a 200 pack before putting them in my parts bin. Might be a good idea to just sit down at the work bench one day and just plan on testing your back log of parts and make sure you not dealing with wrong values or bad parts.

Cody

Sound advise! Been there, it SUCKS doing but it's absolutely worth it.

[billstein]

The funny thing about the suggestion to build a test rig. That was one of the builds that was an epic failure. I tried to de-solder a switch and totally thrashed the board. Just re-ordered another one.

[m-Kresol]

The funny thing about the suggestion to build a test rig. That was one of the builds that was an epic failure. I tried to de-solder a switch and totally thrashed the board. Just re-ordered another one.

Desoldering switches is a PITA to say the least. I managed to put my board mounted 3pdt toggle on the JMK testing rig twisted by 90°. Desoldering pump or braid didn't work. Our technician at work suggested to put a huge amount of solder on all the pins, so that all the pins are in liquid solder at the same time. then gently pull out the switch. Watch out for the puddle of tin drooling of the pcb. that stuff will burn you!

[billstein]

Hey you, get out of my rut.

1 of the last 8 pedals I built worked.
The rest are crap.  Most of them were simple OD pedals too. 

HaHaHa. Maybe we can get together and build an LPB-1 to build up our confidence.

[mgwhit]

Now it seems like I can't build anything. Every stinking pedal fails. Even something simple like a Fatpants.

Instead of building more, spend some time debugging the simpler ones that haven't worked.  With a test rig, an audio probe and a multimeter you should be able to debug almost any non-functional OD, distortion, boost or fuzz that's been built on a verified PCB in less than an hour.  (Significantly faster, if you know what you are doing.)

[mgwhit]

Oh man, I definitely feel for you and your situation. I have been there before and it came down to being a few resistor values that were miss labeled and it got me all messed up. I now test 10-20 resistors out of a 200 pack before putting them in my parts bin. Might be a good idea to just sit down at the work bench one day and just plan on testing your back log of parts and make sure you not dealing with wrong values or bad parts.

Certainly a good idea, but as long as you're low-volume and not going for pure production speed, I recommend testing every component before you solder it in place: resistors, (most) capacitors, diodes, BJT transistors, potentiometers/trimmers and switches can all be tested with a decent multimeter, and JFETs can be tested/measured on a breadboard.  Most ICs can just be socketed, but it isn't hard to make a double-buffer test board for standard-pin dual op-amps -- heck, it can fit on the same half-size breadboard as your JFET tester.  Yes, it will slow you down a bit, but it also reduces your potential problems to poor soldering or bad wiring.