Am I being unrealistic? NOOB perf problems.

[stopstopsmile]

I have been playing around with effects for a few years.  Just basic stuff.  Never got into schematics or anything until recently.

I can build a PCB type, BYOC kits, Vero, and I have built a few simple perfs if someone gave me a lay out.

I understand a schematic to where I understand the input and the output and all the components in between.

I can tell you what parts are needed for the circuit by looking at the schematic, I understand electrolytic and polarity in the caps, I understand the pins on transistors, etc.

I have been trying my hardest to figure out how to take a schematic and build my own perf builds with my own layouts.

Is this something that just takes a long time to understand?  I feel very frustrated.  I just want to be able to take a schematic and convert it into a perf layout and be able to build that circuit.

I am not talking difficult circuits either, I want to build tonebenders, fuzzfaces, tubescreamers, boosts
that type of stuff.

can someone give me some advice, guidance, tips, etc.? 

thank you

[johngreene]

I have been playing around with effects for a few years.  Just basic stuff.  Never got into schematics or anything until recently.

I can build a PCB type, BYOC kits, Vero, and I have built a few simple perfs if someone gave me a lay out.

I understand a schematic to where I understand the input and the output and all the components in between.

I can tell you what parts are needed for the circuit by looking at the schematic, I understand electrolytic and polarity in the caps, I understand the pins on transistors, etc.

I have been trying my hardest to figure out how to take a schematic and build my own perf builds with my own layouts.

Is this something that just takes a long time to understand?  I feel very frustrated.  I just want to be able to take a schematic and convert it into a perf layout and be able to build that circuit.

I am not talking difficult circuits either, I want to build tonebenders, fuzzfaces, tubescreamers, boosts
that type of stuff.

can someone give me some advice, guidance, tips, etc.? 

thank you

Probably the easiest thing to start with is to put the parts on the board just like they are shown in the schematic. Each connection for a part on a schematic equates to a pin on the device. This doesn't work very well for ICs like opamps but for simple transistor circuits, it would be ok. But after you build up a couple and can see how lines correlate to wires and schematic symbols correlate to pins on the parts, you should be able to move up to opamps pretty quickly.

my $.02

--john

[scaesic]

start simple and work your way up, fuzzface should be really easy.

With fuzzface just position your transistors, then take an input wire and add one component at a time, its got such a low component count that it should be 10 minutes work.

With more complicated circuits i find it can be an aquired skill, even when you know how to read a schematic, it can be a bit like doing a cryptic crossword - thats why companies use computer programmes to route pcb's.

With more complicated circuits i find it useful to mark the nodes, and then count how many components connect to each node. Then start with the highly connected areas and work your way out, remembering you dont have any flexibility with chils and transistors, so just place them in a sensible place.

Grounding is also an issue which you need to be careful with in certain circuits. I think rg wrote a book on this if someone wants to link it up, or try the search.

[rackham]

Breadboard!

They're great, you're not committing yourself (and your components) in the same way as with perf or vero and you get to 'try-before-you-buy'.

I breaded my 2nd build, a Bazz Fuzz, and it allowed me to experiment with adding tone controls and cap values before I went on to the proper build. Did the same when I built a Fuzz Face - I went through 5 different schems before I settled on what sounded best to me.

Nice way of quickly translating schematics to circuits.

I hope this doesn't read as patronising as I'm pretty new to this but I've found that the breadboard has really helped me understand what's going on.

[aron]

Did you read this?

http://www.diystompboxes.com/wpress/?cat=3

[stopstopsmile]

aron i read that, a few times.

it still confuses me a bit

for example, I dont understand the capacitor with the 1k resistor, it has a ? and I dont see it appear anywhere.

I also dont understand how 719 ohm trim becomes a 4.7k trim?

I guess I also just dont understand the concept.  I think the hornet is easier to understand but I see these fuzz faces that are built and all the components are lined up in a row, but if I was to build it mine would take a giant piece of perf and would be a mirror of the schematic but more messy.

I guess I need like a teacher to sit down and just show me because my own studying is just leaving me confused, i feel like I sort of get it, but at the same time I don't. 

[frankclarke]

The cap is optional. The trim is variable. There are 271 layouts at  http://www.storm-software.co.yu/diy/index.php?project=layouts if you want to build something now, otherwise enjoy the learning process. You can stick the leads thru cardboard and draw the connections in. Then transfer it to perf. Or wire it together on the cardboard .

[aron]

it has a ? and I dont see it appear anywhere.

The ? means it is optional and can be left out.

I also dont understand how 719 ohm trim becomes a 4.7k trim?

That's the value that the trim can be adjusted to. You turn the trimpot to somewhere around that value.

>but I see these fuzz faces that are built and all the components are lined up in a row, but if I was to build it mine would take a giant piece of perf and would be a mirror of the schematic but more messy.

That's is EXACTLY the way to start. Messy, wasting space, that's the way. Start there and after a while you will learn how to tidy it up yourself.

Aron

[Mark Hammer]

I find discrete circuits that proceed in a linear stage-by-stage fashion are generally easier to build on perfboard.  The reason being that you can simply set up one edge of the perf as V+, the opposite side/edge as ground, and then just follow the schematic from left/in to right/out, funning components up to the one edge of the board or the other.  The Fuzz Face and Big Muff, and all variants of each, are perfect examples of this.  The various octave fuzzes and just about anything from Joe Davisson also fits the bill.  Op-amp stuff is not impossible, but I would not really commend anything using more than one chip until you have a couple of builds under your belt.

I find my most difficult moments are when I have simply not left enough space to work with, either because I didn't centre the circuit properly, or simply didn't start with a big enough piece of perf.

There was a thread over the summer that was chock full of tips on building with perfboard.  I've been working with the stuff for 30 years now and I still learned something from that thread.

[stopstopsmile]

ok so that helps a bit, so in a schematic where I see a ? that means its optional.

ok so the layout is showing trim values not the actual trim pots. 

I want to learn frank, I have seen many layouts but I want to learn.

I like your idea of cardboard.  I might try something like that tonight. 

Ok really silly question but I am confused now, when I start a layout I have been starting at the input and trying to end at the output.  A circuit to me means circle.  So the goal is to connect each piece in the right order from input to output.  Is this the correct way to view it?  I remember as a kid we created a light circuit, it had a switch and a bulb and it was a big circle and we would complete the connection with the switch.  So I carried that thought over to this, input connects to input cap to resistor, transistor, etc.  and your goal is to just set it up piece by piece until you reach the output. 

[aron]

Wait a minute. Uh, did you follow this?

If not, stop asking questions and just do it!

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?board=6.0

And keep saying this:

It is really true that if you connect the components together exactly as shown on a known good schematic and use the correct parts, the circuit will work.

[Pushtone]

Download the DIY Layout Creator software and start practicing perf layout in the virtual world.


When it came time for me to layout an LFO I looked at other layouts that used an LFO.
That helped a lot, not that I'm an expert after a few weeks doing layout work.
I did the same when I faced a voltage divider, two transistors and power traces in a schematic.

It's all been done before so do your homework by looking at other layouts.

[stopstopsmile]

I did the gus boost already. 

[aron]

On perfboard as shown? Did you go through the steps?

[stopstopsmile]

I followed your pic tutorial and I also did a vero so I built it twice. 

[aron]

Wow.

I just want to be able to take a schematic and convert it into a perf layout and be able to build that circuit.

And it didn't help you with the above? I guess I don't know what to say except I guess simply study more layouts and schematics.

Aron

[stopstopsmile]

it did help, but unfortunatly my last few builds failed.

so, because of this I had to ask for help.

I was trying to figure out an op amp circuit and that might have been a problem.