[sdiy] how to best learn the trade

[anthony]

What I do is get tons of those solder breadboards that Radio Shack sells. I 
like the big and small 1 pad per hole and I also like the ones with 
3-holes-per-pad and power/ground lines. The latter are best when using a lot 
of IC's. The idea is to build lots of circuits from schematics. Just follow 
the schematics and wire them up on the board in a way that seems best. I use 
22-ga. solid wire to run wires to different parts. Sometimes I use salvaged 
wire, but I hate tinning stranded wire so I collect "pre-tinned" wire which 
often comes in lots of colors. If you can collect a lot of this you're 
golden. I can't buy it locally, but I probably wouldn't if I could. Wire is 
getting pricey. If you don't care about color just get a big roll of 22-ga. 
solid with black insulation at Radio Shack. Or get red or green if you 
prefer. I wouldn't concern yourself with color coding too much, but if you 
must, several old, long SCSI or big twisted-pair printer cables may yield up 
more color schemes than you even need. But again, there's the cutting of 
small bits of wire and then tinning it, it's really just better to use 
solid. Some areas I use bare copper lengths close to the board. If I could 
buy a nice roll of bare 22-ga copper wire, I would, but as it is I usually 
end up pre-stripping about 3 ft. of wire before I begin a project. (I went 
through at least 50 feet of wire last year alone... along with 3lbs of 63/37 
solder - because it's eutectic and doesn't super-cool - less cold joints. 
Yeah I had to explain that to the sales guy...)

Anyway the point is to just make and make and make boards. Sometimes when 
you are done, you say, "This is shit." and then you desolder it and make 
something else on the board. Othertimes you likes it and test it and it 
doesn't work. You can: a. troubleshoot it and get it going or you can: b. 
just tear it down and do it all over again. This may seem like a waste, but 
for someone who is just beginning it's good experience. I think it's better 
to hone your construction techniques before you worry about getting good at 
troubleshooting. Once you get a feel for reading schematics and you keep 
reading little tutorials here and there about basic circuits, you start 
seeing what each part of a schematic is and what it does and then the best 
way it would go on a breadboard.

Solderless breadboards are good too. I recommend getting several: 2 large 
ones and various small ones. Invest in one of those learning lab sets. A few 
of the slickest guys on this list still use these to design & troubleshoot 
circuits. I don't have one, but I want one even though I have a huge 
collection of parts and some solderless breadboards.

It's getting less fun to learn electronics this way. The main reason is that 
the quality of goods from Radio Shack has plummeted in the last ten years. A 
desoldering iron is essential for this method and I HIGHLY recommend buying 
the bullshit extra warranty for any iron you get at Radio Shack. You'll know 
what I mean when you go through 3 irons in a month. I had to fast-talk my 
way to a decent iron because I DIDN'T buy the extra warranty but all of the 
crappy irons I bought were still under the normal lame warranty. Try to find 
a different brand of desoldering iron on eBay, but check out the 
availability of replacement tips. I go through about 3 tips a month (mostly 
when I'm also on a parts aquisition binge from old radios and such...), but 
I like mine new - the bore gets bigger as they wear and they're not as 
effective then. Another thing: those breadboards don't hold up to re-use 
like they used to. You'll end up having to make do with boards with bad 
pads. Sometimes I just cut them up to make small projects or add small 
pieces to another board for a bigger project.

I have no problems with using the prototyping boards as the final stage of 
the project that I end up using. It's good to be able to get a pre-etched 
and drilled board when you can though.

I have come to prefer making tube circuits on pre-existing chassis. Right 
now I've only done tube amps, but I'd like to make a REAL Theremin and a 
Clavioline as well. And there are lots of organ circuits that used scads of 
tubes. Some of the Wurlitzer monstrosities and what-not...

Modifying circuits can be more fun than building them. I am partial to DOD 
effects. People don't seem to care much for them compared to Boss and such, 
but despite their quirks, they are very good for tweaking. I have two DOD 
R-870 Flanger/Doubler rack units that I got for under $100 for both 
(separate deals). I modified the clocks so that the "Doubler" was a nice 
modulatable MN3005-based analog delay. I almost never use the flanger part, 
because the clock mods make it more of a chorus and it's not a great one. I 
have an idea to keep the flanger clock fast and the doubler clock slow, but 
I haven't implemented it yet. Mainly because I am doing all of my mods 
without a schematic. I can figure out what I've got looking at the board and 
looking at schematics for other DOD gear. Usually a weird design quirk can 
make a tweak project a real headache if you don't have a schematic and 
design quirks abound in DOD gear. Usually it's a bias circuit that isn't 
properly isolated or something like that. The R-870 is touchy towards the 
impedence of both the input and the output. I have watched the clock peter 
out and stop on a 'scope when I connected the output to a 600Ohm input of 
another piece of gear.

Having the schematic is really a must. You can find schematics for just 
about everything on the web and if you can't, ask here and someone will 
probably stear you near.

cheers,
Anthony

> Thanks for everyone who responded to my previous post in regards to
> manufacturing front panels.
>
> Now I want to ask you all about what are the best resources for
> someone who doesn't quite know how to read a schematic, but can build
> a well instructed kit no problem. I want to be able to perform
> modifications to some of my kits,  (fatman and x0xb0x), and in the
> future, build some of my own devices.
>
> Questions like, how to take a schematic and make a board from it, etc...
>
> Thanks in advance
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