multimeters!

[Rodgre]

This might end up as the most controversial and obnoxious thing I've ever posted on the internet, but here goes.

If you are interested enough in DIY stompbox to be frequenting this forum, interested enough to go out and buy yourself a soldering iron... to actually have Small Bear bookmarked in your list of favorites, you NEED A METER.

I feel that once I graduated from just fixing guitar cables with my humongus Weller soldering GUN, to actually doing pedals, I immediately needed a meter.  Even when I was fixing cables, I still needed a meter.

Even if it's a simple continuity tester, and not a fancy one that tests capacitors or hfe, it's one of the crucial tools to doing DIY.

So take stock. If you look at your workbench (or kitchen table, as it was when I started) and there is no meter, before you go out and order some more 5088s, get yourself a meter!!!! You will wonder how you ever lived without it!

End of rant.

Roger

[R.G.]

I could not agree more.

Building effects - or doing anything electronic - without a meter is fundamentally shortsighted. There is no real hope of getting anything other than a Heathkit style paint-by-the-numbers kit built and running without a meter.

[Dirk_Hendrik]

Measuring means knowing. Without a multimeter you'll always be blind and will often he to resort to luck. Pretty often you;ll not be lucky in those cases.

However, there's a step 2, which is easily taken: You'll need to know the difference between AC and DC voltages and currents and you'll need to know the difference between kilo and mega ohms. Souds simple but there's a lot of people I met who do own a multimeter but don't have a clue how and what to measure.

having said that,
If you want to grow to more complex circuits in the future get yourself a (second hand, antique) scope. This may be a relatively expensive investment but it will pay itself back in no time as it can save hours of guesswork.

[MartyMart]

I agree totally !!
Scope is on my "must get one soon" list !!

Marty.

[toneman]

Actually....
if U want 2 build stompboxes, U "need" 2 meters.
ONE analog---for measuring pots.
..the meter movement makes it easy 2 C a noisy pot.
ONE digital---for measuring Voltage & resisitor ohms.
..Use the digitalMM to "match" resistors, or 4 measuring the
overall value of a pot.  Analog will let U visualize the taper.
RS has cheap analogs.
HarborFreight has a good, cheap digital for $2.99!!!
Try 2 buy locally as shipping will B more than the meter!
The THIRD item in your arsenal (not including a good soldering iron),
is a stable adjustable power supply.
staytuned
tone

[littlegreiger]

I know you guys say that you need a meter but I have built two pedals without a meter and they both worked first time i plugged them in. I just got a digital multimeter for Christmas and although I didn't use one before I probably will now.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

In order of importance, what I need is:

MOST important: soldering iron :wink:

next, continuity tester

next, meter.

If your meter has a continuity beeper, then so much the better.

[dr]

....a couple of weeks ago I posted that MCM had a meter kit (diy) for $15.00.....darn good deal for what features it had....

[ethrbunny]

I bought a nice new meter after being (pseudo-) shamed by RG. Its sitting on my workbench waiting for me to get back from vacation (im in Fl at the moment.. its sunny and near 80 today   ). Im going to do my best to slap a 'fender blender' into submission when I return. Or at least to cry for mercy with honest-to-god-digitally-accurate-numbers.

[sir_modulus]

Honestly people, meters are amazing things! I wonder how on earth I'd ever match sets of FETs for a Phase 90 with no meter!

Some people also downplay the wonder of a capacitance tester/ HFE tester built in. I love both of those features, and now, tons of meters are coming with them stock. I use the HFE test all the time! If I have a box full of 2N5088's, it only takes me 5 mins to sort them from high to low gain. Then I can plug in different gains for different stages on my BMP, till it sounds just right. For the capacitance function, I use it because I'm really lazy. I tend to get lots of spare parts, but I have to sort them. With the cap meter, I just pop em in and see. I can also test for bad filtering. If my Dist+ seems to have a really weird cutoff, I just test the cap (near diodes...15Pf I believe) to see if it's actually the right one. besides, some of the values are really hard to read, or smudged, or just missing!

Overall, I think this is the order of importance for DIY stuff:
-Soldering iron...a good one...cheap ones will never do SMT
-Digital Multimeter...if possible with the Cap/HFE test
-Signal Generator...use to test, with out strumming guitar..buildable
-Audio probe...extracts signals...amazing for debugging...buildable
>>>Heres the line that seperates the standard from those who actually design circuits, or are real serious about building pedals.
-Analog Meter...for tapers
-Oscilloscope...for wave testing

Cheers,

Nish

[mojotron]

I've worked in the electronics field for many years. Basically, I would not advise anyone to start building electronics projects without a meter and a at least a moderate level of interest in discovering how it works. It's just too frustrating, and there is always some misinformation.

Building your own effects is only cost effective if you are going to build quite a few, and if your going to build a few - you may as well get a meter....

If I need a scope, I usually take it to work and barrow a scope, some day I might try the signal generator and scope programs that run on a computer and use the sound card.

I rarely build a circuit that I haven't sim-ed in SuperSpice either - I can get most of my mods done on my computer - which saves having to perfboard everything, and you always have a working example to compare meter readings with.

[ethrbunny]

Id love to have a function / freq generator. That would save me having to drag one of my kids out to "strum a few times when I ask". A scope too... heck.. why not a Marshall TSL while Im dreaming... :?

[Karmasound]

Hey guys,

I have  a decent iron, a dmm, and anolog that my dad gave me, and have started building the signal gen. and audio probe.

But i've been curious about how much, and what brand of Oscope would be budget and get the job done?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

how much, and what brand of Oscope would be budget and get the job done?

Nobody ever regretted getting a Tektronics.
But, for what we do here, any scope works.
If I were in USA, I'd go to ham swap meets & keep buying scopes till one worked. (I'm not joking.) Swap meet guides are on the web.

[Peter Snowberg]

Nobody ever regretted getting a Tektronics.

Well... until I found out the replacement cost for the analog board of my 1 GHz storage scope.  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:

....and then found out that they stopped stocking it as a service part or any of the manuals for that scope either.  :cry:  :cry:  :cry:

$15,000 paper weight  :shock:

[mojotron]

Have you guys tried the scope/function generator programs that work with the sound card on your computer - I'm wondering how well those work?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

They work for looking at audio waveforms, but the frequency response of the soundcard and the fact that the card isn't DC coupled, mean that it certainly isn't as easy (or as accurate) as an actual scope.

What a scope does well: looking at waveforms.

What a computer&soundcard can do well: generating test signals, and generating fourier analysis results.

There has been plenty of stuff here in the past on sound card scope programs.

[mojotron]

I would have to say, I think 99.99% of the time, if I need debug tools I only use an audio probe and a DMM.

Now, if I only had a 3rd hand - I would get one of those.

[sir_modulus]

:shock: Wow...I can't even afford a cheap new scope!!!

I bought my scope as an old used one that a local university was throwing out....Tektroniks here too...amazing stuff!

Cheers,

Nish

[rubberlips]

If you're considering buying a meter, spend the money and get one with all the doo dahs, voltage, resistence, current as well as capacitance, inductance, HFE. Most with gain measurement will also have transistor testers on them as well. I think my meter cost about $100 australian. Buy one meter, you won't regret it.

Although I don't need transistor gain all the time, it comes in handy for germanium trannies for fuzz faces etc.

As for scopes, I finally worked out how to get one running on my PC. True, they don't have the frequency range required for some things, but for fault finding what we're doing, they do the job. I've also got a little amp connected inbetween the sound card and probe, which can either boost or attenuate the signal (just like on a cro). It makes it a hell of a lot easier to fault find projects. The software that came with the amp was windscope, however there are a few other programs out there that do something similar.

Oh, one other thing, you can make cheap sine wave generators, so that you can feed a signal in and see what's happening with it. I think mine was about $10 and a half hour to put it together from a kit.

Cheers

Pete