Lying liars at the Post Office.

"...delivered in or at the mailbox at 12:15 PM on January 30, 2016..."

Lies. LIES, I tell you. Since the Gub'mint don't work on weekends (insert joke here), me an' Uncle Sam are gonna have WORDS on Monday.

So - no build progress today...:(

EDIT: here's a demo of the pedal I am going to build, for reference. The Lovepedal Silicon Fuzzmaster.

Saturday Slacking....

Okay, or not. Had too much on the 'to do' list that didn't involve solder huffing, so no progress today. I *did* get a chance to hit Ax-man in St. Louis Park, and was able to score gobs of components - mostly utility resistors and such.

I think the next project will be a prototyping board of some kind - so I can assemble the circuits and test BEFORE soldering them up. There are a bunch of sites that show how to build your own, so I just need to add the parts to the 'want' list.

The descent down the rabbit hole continues....

The smell of solder in the evening...

Okay, so while I DON'T have all the parts yet, I can start soldering the parts I *do* have - so, I get to break out the Christmas present to myself: a Brand New Circuit Specialists Station 75.

This is what kind of started me down the path of building, actually. See, I got tired of trying to use the hacky little Radio Shack pencil soldering irons for guitar work, so I did a little searching, and found Circuit Specialists. For the price of a couple of Radio Shack cheapies, I can get a temp controlled station, stand, extra tips, and a bunch of other goodies. After using this setup on a couple of quick projects around the house, I realized that 'Hey! Soldering DOESN'T suck as much as I thought it did!' Which, started the creaky old gears in my brain going, and since I'm already an effects addict, well...here we are.

After a few failed attempts at starting (including soldering the components to the wrong side of the stripboard - D'Oh!), I got into the rhythm of things.

Not half bad for being out of practice for ((CENSORED)) years....

Once I ran out of parts for the fuzz, I decided to start working on the miniboards for the bypass/stomp switch. I guess it's now 'Millenium Bypass' - at least that's what the cool kids call it.

I got two bypass boards started and ran out of components...then the camera batteries died, I ran out of Diet Dew (OH NOES), and it was time for the kids to get to bed. 

My component order is scheduled to arrive on Monday, so not much more to be done on this one until then.

Jumping in with both feet.

....And no life jacket, really.

My "formal" electronics knowledge comes from a couple of semesters of electronics in high school - which is a place I've not been in a long time...a long time....(end Obi-wan flashback).

My dad was an electronics guy all his life - working on sensitive radar and electronics in the Navy, to a career at 3M. After retirement, he started to dabble in building computers, and he always seemed to be able to repair the broken electronic stuff around the house. He showed me how *NOT* to burn myself with a soldering iron, and how to use a meter.

Over the years, I've taken to upgrading my guitar electronics, as well as the occasional home electronics repair - but I haven't built anything from scratch since I built a Heathkit tone generator from a kit in High School.

So, since I need some sort of hobby to keep me occupied, I'm going to try this. Nothing like jumping into the deep end....

Day one: Starting my first Build...

Plan: put the Electronics knowledge to use. And occupy my time...I wanted to do something both creative and technical, musical yet calculative. Solution: build and test guitar effect pedals!

After doing some research I decided to go for an 'easier' first build. Many resources recommend a simple silicon fuzz, so a quick search on my new favorite site - Tagboard Effects - and I decided on a clone of the Lovepedal Silicon Fuzzmaster.

I spent a few days falling down the rabbit hole of parts sites, before I remembered that the Ax-Man carries heaps of surplus stuff. And electronics. LOTS AND LOTS of electronics... A couple of afternoon trips and I have almost everything I need! I can get most of the board set up while I wait for the parts I had to order to arrive.

First, we prepare the work area. Bags of parts, stripboard, tools, and the pcb layout.

More tools, and Dew. Hydration and caffeine: vital to building.

First, we need to cut the stripboard down to size. Once cut, I file/scrape the copper traces from the edges so there won't be any shorts.

Some filing, sanding, a couple of expletives....and our boards are cut. I will be building the fuzz circuit on a larger board, and a smaller pieces will be cut down to smaller boards for the switch bypass and LED.

Next, we need to cut traces in the stripboard, per the schematic. I will be adding the links when I start to solder (and when I get the hookup wire I ordered...)

And that's it for the night! Next up, I plan to start wiring and soldering the main board...