First MadBean Build

[milkypostman]

It's a Firebomb.

After finishing my PHD I finally got to work on this pedal.  Fairly easy build but time consuming nonetheless.

The only problems I had were on two of the joints, I must have spent too much time with the iron and the circuit started to come off the board.  Once was on a cap that's on the upper left part of the first picture.  It ended up being loose after I mounted the board but I was able to add some more solder so that it connected to the adjacent area better.  Seems to be stable but I'm afraid that I damaged the cap during all of this and or the connection is loose.

The second place i message up was the line going to negative of one of the LEDs.  I think the tip on my iron may be getting old and it didn't seem to be getting the surrounding area hot (surrounding area being the metal on the board, i don't know the name).  Eventually it got too hot and the metal on the board just came off totally.  I just soldered it right to the negative in the end.  Again fingers crossed here.

I highlighted these areas on the closeup but its probably hard to see.

Before putting in the 9V connector I hooked it up and it worked great (so on the first shot it worked amazingly).  I opened it back up,  added the battery connector, put in a 9V, and when I went to try it again, one of the circuits wasn't turning on (well, the LED wasn't lighting up).  I tapped the box and it has been working ever since no matter what.  I actually have a feeling it was related to the the ground for the LED (notice one of the problems I had) not having a good connection.  Because of this I went back in and tried to touch up the places where the board was coming away.  This possibly fixed the issues everything seems to have a good connection now.


I don't have a ton of money to spend on pedals so I hope that it survives playing live etc.  I need to go read the rest of the forums about techniques for soldering but if anyone has any tips I'd be happy to hear em.  I am sorry I didn't get a close picture of the circuit before I mounted it.

Hopefully this makes it through the first show I have in a couple of weeks in Des Moines.  If anyone is from that area let me know.

Should I be too worried?

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[nzCdog]

Hey man, cool pedal... and congrats on your phd! So your a doctor now right?  kudos!

Soldering is something that gets much easier with practice, and the right tools!
If you want to test the integrity of your joins, plug it in and poke the suspect solder joints with a chopstick while you strum a little...  i've done messier jobs than that and had no problems so hopefully you should be ok.

For solder tips, try youtube... there are many techniques that are essentially ways of doing the same thing.  Besides having a good tip on your iron, and using pre-fluxed solder... the most important thing is the very basic technique... to heat the component and pcb with the iron, then apply the solder to the component/board and not to the soldering iron.

[petesz]

Congrats on the first build!

It looks like you need to invest in a pair of wire clippers! You should cut the leads down after you have soldered them so they dont stick out too far.. this can cause shorting if things move around.

As far as soldering advice: Make sure you have a thin tip on your iron, big ones will melt everything. Make sure the iron has heated up and then tin the end of the iron with some solder. Normally then i wipe the iron on my sponge to get it all nice and clean then wait for it to get a bit hot again. then hold the end of the iron on the joint touching both the solder pad and the wire of the component to get both a bit heated up, for maybe 3 or 4 seconds, then touch the solder into where the iron tip and solder pad meet untill you get a decent amount of solder on the joint and hold the iron on for a further 3 or 4 seconds to make sure the solder is all nice and melted around to avoid cold solders. Remove the iron tip, let the solder harden and then use those wire trimmer to snip off the excess wire!

Keep practicing and you will find it gets easy. Your wiring looks good btw! Good choice using a larger enclosure for your first build, i think it was my second build i was eager and tried a 1590A.. not smart haha.

[milkypostman]

Thanks.  This all makes me feel better.  I was doing the 3-4 second thing but I was thinking even that was probably bringing the components up too high.

I actually prefer the larger boxes for some reason.  I don't use a lot of pedals so they aren't in the way all that much and for something with two switches it seemed more appropriate.

Slow Loris is next.  I will probably still use a large case for that (replacing a fuzz face build I did on perf board).

[dwstanford]

Thats a great first build.  I like the larger boxes also.  I like to leave a little extra space so i can hide my dope in there.     You say you dont use that many pedals, but id like to bet youre gonna look up in a few months and see pedals everywhere.  Thats how it happens for most of us.  But with all those pedals to choose from, I usually only use three or four pedals for gigs, which is petty spartan by todays standards.

[gtr2]

Welcome to "Madbean Land"!  Congrats on your first build.

A couple things...

You'll get much more comfortable soldering with practice.  It's just like riding a bike for the first time without training wheels.  A little shaky at first but once you get going you forgot you ever had them on.

I'll just elaborate on the great advise given above.  I rarely ever go 3 seconds on a joint unless its a input/output jack.  Components are pretty much touch and go.  Irons do make a difference.  You can get by with cheap ones but if you end up becoming addicted to building I'd recommend spending a little to get a good iron.  It's made a big difference in my technique.  Better irons stay at a much more consistent temp.  Cheap irons need more time between joints because the temp fluctuates much more.  It's hard to stay consistent when your tip keeps responding a little different.  That's just my 2 cents 

On the topic of intermittent solder joints like you were experiencing:

When soldering a joint the component lead or wire need to be supported so they don't move.  There is a brief period when the solder is cooling where the lead/wire can shift if it wants to.  If the lead is moving while the solder is cooling you'll have an intermittent problem.

Once again welcome!  We'll be here if you have any more questions.

Josh

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

I have to agree with an above comment, you wiring looks great for your first build! I wouldn't worry about the pedal unless it starts giving you trouble again. If you ever de-solder a pad, you can always connect a wire manually to the place it was supposed to go. Keep up the good work!