First Pedal - First Hairbrained Oversight

[das234]

My personal (albeit minor) tragedy.  So I've been reading the forums and watching the tutorials and I've gotten hooked on pedal building even though I've never built a pedal.  I ordered up a few PCBs, some transistors from Paul, some parts from Small Bear and 455 parts from Tayda; miscellaneous diodes, resistors, knobs etc.  I finally got the stuff together, checked the orders (100% perfect accuracy!) and set down with great excitement to build my very first pedal.  I soldered up the PCB components, pots and leads for hookup and am feeling satisfied with my quick mastery of the soldering iron, reading the plans, and all that.  I hook my pedal guts into my test rig to rock it before I embark on boxing it.  No sound.  Oh, that's right... I socketed the op amp and didn't plug the bugger in yet.  No big deal, I'll just grab it and pop it in.  It's right here with the other.... uh.... it's right here... the LM741 must be here with the ??  Well, I'm sure I got everything I ordered.  Check the shipping papers - sure enough, I got every single part I ordered.  I didn't order any 741s!!  So now I have to track one down locally or else put the project on hold until I place another order.  I can't be the only dunderhead to do that, am I?

Thanks for letting me share.  It was therapeutic.  And thanks again for everyone's help here.  Whenever I track down that op amp and finish the build, I'll update on how the pedal works.

[Stomptown]

My personal (albeit minor) tragedy.  So I've been reading the forums and watching the tutorials and I've gotten hooked on pedal building even though I've never built a pedal.  I ordered up a few PCBs, some transistors from Paul, some parts from Small Bear and 455 parts from Tayda; miscellaneous diodes, resistors, knobs etc.  I finally got the stuff together, checked the orders (100% perfect accuracy!) and set down with great excitement to build my very first pedal.  I soldered up the PCB components, pots and leads for hookup and am feeling satisfied with my quick mastery of the soldering iron, reading the plans, and all that.  I hook my pedal guts into my test rig to rock it before I embark on boxing it.  No sound.  Oh, that's right... I socketed the op amp and didn't plug the bugger in yet.  No big deal, I'll just grab it and pop it in.  It's right here with the other.... uh.... it's right here... the LM741 must be here with the ??  Well, I'm sure I got everything I ordered.  Check the shipping papers - sure enough, I got every single part I ordered.  I didn't order any 741s!!  So now I have to track one down locally or else put the project on hold until I place another order.  I can't be the only dunderhead to do that, am I?

Thanks for letting me share.  It was therapeutic.  And thanks again for everyone's help here.  Whenever I track down that op amp and finish the build, I'll update on how the pedal works.

Bummer! I think that's just par for the course. If you post I the parts jar sub forum (in the buy sell trade forum) I'd bet someone out there can help you out...

[jimilee]

Welcome to the club! As you build up your stash it will be less of an issue,but it still hapens! And I will ALWAYS forget to put the opamp into the socket!

[das234]

At least I figured it out right away.  I'd have felt like a real idiot if I'd scratched my head for an hour and stared at the darn thing under a microscope before I figured it out.

[jimilee]

At least I figured it out right away.  I'd have felt like a real idiot if I'd scratched my head for an hour and stared at the darn thing under a microscope before I figured it out.

Soon!

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

Yup that has happened to all of us. I now make a checklist on excel and delete as I order each part. I still somehow recently ordered 5.1r resistors instead of 5.1k..wasn't stoked on that.

[stevie1556]

I've done that far too many times!

When I order now, I try and order resistor and caps in quantities of 100's, everything else in quantities of 10 and it happens far less now.

Sent from my thumbs using Tapatalk!

[GermanCdn]

And I will ALWAYS forget to put the opamp into the socket!

They should just make the sockets pink or orange or some colour other than black, it would reduce the opamp forgets something fierce, as it is also my number one blunder, followed closely by not plugging in my test rig.

[jimilee]

And I will ALWAYS forget to put the opamp into the socket!

They should just make the sockets pink or orange or some colour other than black, it would reduce the opamp forgets something fierce, as it is also my number one blunder, followed closely by not plugging in my test rig.

did that too the other day, I was pissed for like 2 minutes.

[das234]

And I will ALWAYS forget to put the opamp into the socket!

They should just make the sockets pink or orange or some colour other than black, it would reduce the opamp forgets something fierce, as it is also my number one blunder, followed closely by not plugging in my test rig.

Funny, I picked up an op amp today, plugged it in and still nothing.  I realized now it was not my board but my test rig that was to blame.  I built it into a wooden cigar box and hadn't added a jumper to ground the jacks.  Figured that out pretty quick too though.  Soldered in a jumper wire and (drumroll....) the pedal guts work!  So far so good.  Next on to boxing.  I plan to go slow so I don't botch anything. 

[jimilee]

Ive done that too with my test rig. pull my hair out only to find the issue was in my rig. I still touch the in / out jack clips together just to make sure it's working as part of the debug process. Great to hear it's working right, great feeling!