My first goal in my early adult years was to become a rock guitarist. After ending up in dead end gigs in smoky clubs, drinking 7 nights a week, living out of a suitcase, playing to a room full of morons etc. I had enough of it. I decided to get a job that paid steady money so that I could buy more guitars and support then my girlfriend.
My first real job was with an electronic component distributor. We sold resistors, capacitors, integrated circuits, memory chips and whatever else. Although I was poorly paid, overworked, and under appreciated, I found myself in the mists of a technological revolution. I had to find out more. So I registered my self into a electro-technology program at a local college. This I did at night, up to four nights a week while holding down a full time stressful job. It was tough. It took about 4 years but I finally graduated with certificate in electro technology. Strangely, I might add, I have yet to work as a technologist but it has helped me find employment in the IT field.
Building circuits and repairing things is where I still get my hands on experience. Someone once said that if I could not plug my guitar into it I wasn't interested in it. Well it's true, almost everything I have ever built is oriented around music and recording.
Over the years magazines such as Popular Electronics, Radio Electronic have featured construction projects that you might find useful. Some of the circuits that I have built include a parametric EQ, a dual Compressor, a dual Limiter, some mixers, power supplies, test equipment etc. A word of warning, you may want to wait a couple of months before starting a magazine project. Many times errors are printed and corrections appear only two to three issues later. Guitar Player Magazine ran a Fuzz Face circuit that was incorrect and never ever ran the correction. See my MIDI & Recording page for more info on projects.
The easiest , most fool proof way to build a relatively complex project is by first making a printed circuit board. If you have the circuit trace pattern ( usually printed in article) you are far a head of the game. There are various ways to create circuits boards. One of the current popular methods consists of photocopying or printing the circuit pattern onto a transparency and ironing it onto a clean piece of copper clad board. I tried this once but had bad results so I stick to old tried and true methods. Here are the tools that you will need. Get yourselves some copper clad pc board. Single sided should do in most cases. I buy large sheets and cut then to size. I use a hand held jig saw. You'll need some etching solution , ferric chloride. Be careful this will eat away copper and other metals as well as permanently stain bathroom fixtures. You'll need a plastic container in which to do your etching. Get your own. Your wife or Mom will not appreciate you staining their kitchen containers. You need plastic or glass containers because the ferric chloride is an acid. It will also stain your skin. Get yourselves a pair of rubber gloves and a plastic apron or long coat. You'll need to work in a well ventilated area the fumes are rather unpleasant. I do my etching in the bathroom because if there ever was an accident there would be less damage.
First I copy ( or scan) the circuit making sure that the size is correct. Sometime a circuit pattern is printed half size to save space. Other time it is not to scale but there is a ruler printer to show the dimensions. It is usually VERY important to respect the scale. The main reason is that IC chips, relays etc have fixed footprints usually in .1 of an inch increments. If your holes are off you'll never be able to fit the parts in. When I have to resize a circuit pattern I use a IC socket to test the pin spacing before I start drilling. Also sometimes a mirror image of the pattern is printed. This is an easy fix with Photoshop or Paint shop pro.
Once the pattern is printed I cut around the pattern leaving a extra inch on all sides. I then cut a piece of copper board to match the circuit. I tape the circuit pattern to the copper board. Then I drill all the holes using the pattern as a guide. On note on drill bits. Usually holes are between 1/64 to 1/32 of an inch. You can buy special tapered bits whose thicker end will lock into the drill press. Now I say drill press because you can buy an 8'' drill press for under $40.00 US. I used to actually drill boards with a hand held drill but that was when a drill press was over $ 250.00.
After all the holes are drill I remove the paper pattern and clean the copper with steel wool. It must be totally clean before you etch it. Do not touch the copper again. Now the fun part. Using an etch resistant pen I draw small black circles around all the holes. Then I draw the lines as scene on the circuit pattern. When I am 100% certain that I have not made any mistakes I let the pen ink dry. Now an etch resistant pen is available in most electronic shops or Radio Shack stores. They come in different sizes, so you may want to buy a few different line sizes. A permanent marker may work but I haven't done enough testing.
The idea is to eat ( etch) away all the copper from the board leaving only the copper covered by the pen. This copper will be user to connect the components. I move into the bath room. I put my rubber gloves and old work coat on to protect my skin and clothing I put the board into a plastic rectangle container with sides about 4 " high. It's been said that heat will speed the process but I have never been at ease with the idea of heat the ferric chloride acid. I have developed another method. Prior the pouring the ferric chloride acid over the board I run the hot water in the sink. When the water is super hot I halve fill the sink with it. I dip the acid filled container in the water and hold it so that the heat will indirectly heat up the ferric chloride acid. I pour enough ferric chloride into the container to cover the board and a little bit extra. Don't forget to put the cap back on the acid. It will take about 15 minutes to etch the board so be patient. I rock the container back and forth so that the acid washes over the board often. This too will speed up the process. Soon you will start to see only the pattern. There may be some left over spots of cooper so again be patient. As soon as you see no more copper you must stop the process. I usually empty the sink and run cold water into the plastic container to dilute the acid. I keep rinsing with cold water and make sure that there is no residue in the sink.
Next let the board dry. You pat away the extra water with a paper towel. When the board is dry, clean away the etch resistant ink with steel wool. You should be left with just the copper pattern. Now it's time to place you components. Be extra careful of orientation of certain components i.e. polarized capacitors, diodes , transistors and ICs. Flip the board over and solder the components. Never user too much solder.
When all the board mount components are soldered into place it's time to connect the outboard components.
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