[sdiy] Newbie Bragging

[Joe Franko]

Okay, I realize this isn't much for most of you, but this is the only place
I can brag about this! 

I decided a few months ago that I really would like eventually to build my
own analogue synth. My soldering skills were rusty (like 30 years since I
soldered anything), and I don't know much about practical electronics,
except theoretically (I'm a mathematician). So I decided that the PAIA
Theramax was a good place to start, but that even that was beyond me a few
months ago. I decided that before tackling that I would get some of the
small Velleman kits to hone my soldering skills. Over the last two months
I've had lots of fun building 8 small Velleman kits. After building the last
kit I decided I was ready to tackle the Theramax. 

A week ago I began putting the kit together. Finished it yesterday and tried
to tune it. Tuning the pitch oscillators went very well, but I couldn't tune
the volume oscillators. I was suspicious when I put the kit together that
one of the volume oscillators was faulty because it didn't respond the way
the others had to conductivity tests (I test every solder joint after it's
soldered in because I still don't trust my soldering skills). Luckily when I
realized I might need a replacement as I was putting the kit together I
ordered a couple of replacements from Mouser. I'm still a little
disappointed with PAIA over this, as I couldn't raise them by phone and
there has been no response to three emails (I know, though, this is
Christmas vacation and hope they eventually respond at least to one of my
emails). In any event, I desoldered what I thought was the bad oscillator,
and soldered in the replacement from Mouser. Fired the Theramax up again,
and was able to tune both sets of oscillators. Did all of the diagnostic
tests outlined in the directions, and everything is working well.

I'm so proud of putting this first piece of analogue equipment together
myself. I know that this is a pretty easy kit for most of you, but it's my
first and hopefully not my last.

Looking forward to more DIY stuff this new year.

Happy New Year to you all...

Joe
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