General Iroh - Fuzz Face SMD

[BaklavaMetal]

Me again, this time it's a NPN Si Fuzz Face in SMD.

This is my first SMD build. During my time lurking around i saw pickdropper's work and was amazed. I told myself "you could start doing something like that instead of your usual vero mess".so i started reading alot about SMD soldering, watching videos, and finally got the guts to try it. I made a couple of layouts (also my first) for FF and SHO, bought a 0805 SMD cap & res kit with many values i'll probably never use and made a layout for practicing. It's a 1"x1" double sided board with 35 0805 components on each side. Perfect for all those useless values. After populating two of those i felt ready enough to solder the FF.

SMD doesn't seem too hard, i use a regular conical tip solder iron, the cheap stuff, without much problem. I'll probably upgrade soon, but first i have to find a job Also no magnification, not even my glasses (the dog ate them). But flux is a must, i use Kester 186 that pickdropper recommended.

When the boards and components arrived, i ran into my first problem. As you can see in top left corner of the PCB there should be a polarized cap, but! As i ordered tantalum caps from futurlec and they dont have size listed anywhere, i sent 'em an email and they failed to mention that 100uf caps come in 7-something size, so the pads weren't big enough for those. Then i told myself "OK, you have 4 22uf caps which fit there, better some filtering than none", and soldered it. I foolishly presumed that the line mark on the cap represents the negative pole. It doesn't, so i ruined a couple of caps and was left with a 10uf MLCC for PS filtering.
Also i ordered 1k trims instead of 10k so i had to source locally (the black one).
Other than that it was smooth sailing. Boxing was done following steps pickdropper described in mayan thread.
Enclosure is etched, but not painted, i just didn't remove all the gunk left from etching and i really liked how it looks.

Here are the pics

[selfdestroyer]

Very nice & tidy build. The etch looks clean. If I would suggest one thing it would be to get yourself a tooth brush (or something of the sorts) and you can use it to clean the PCB off of stuff that clings on like dust and even wire trimmings. Just a suggestion.

I really love how tidy the jacks and the PCB are in the 1590A.

Cody

[alanp]

+1, I'm really impressed

[wgc]

Cool, how's it sound?

Gotta check the data sheet, some suppliers don't follow all the same conventions.

[chuckbuick]

Nice!  Especially for a first try with no magnification.  I can barely find my pots without my opti-visor.

[m-Kresol]

Cool build. I like the theme of it, too! loved that series...

[Hexjibber]

Nice build man, I like it!

[alanp]

Oh, and does anyone else get that Johnny Cash song stuck in their head when they see the topic title? "Call him drunken Ira Hayes, he won't answer any more, not the whisky drinking Indian nor the Marine who went to war..."

[BaklavaMetal]

tThanks guys for all the nice words

Very nice & tidy build. The etch looks clean. If I would suggest one thing it would be to get yourself a tooth brush (or something of the sorts) and you can use it to clean the PCB off of stuff that clings on like dust and even wire trimmings. Just a suggestion.


Cody

Thanks for the tip

Cool, how's it sound?

Gotta check the data sheet, some suppliers don't follow all the same conventions.

Fuzzy. Can't really tell, i'm not much of a fuzz guy, and never played a fuzz besides BM, but i like it

[RobA]

Nice! It's good to get over the SMD hump. At this point, I think I like building SMD more than PTH. (Except for the really tiny leads on some IC's. Those still drive me nuts).

Cool build. I like the theme of it, too! loved that series...

Yeah, I liked the series too -- watched it with my son. Iroh was definitely my favorite character.

[pickdropper]

Hey, that looks great.

I agree about SMT: there's nothing magical about it.  Once you get used to it, it's just another technique you've learned how to do.

[Leevibe]

Beautiful!