Build Your Own Clone Message Board

I am a complete pedal monkey. I love effects! I've always wanted to build them, but I have no real knowledge to speak of. Where should I start? Is a fuzz the easiest build? It seems that way from all the reading I've done online.

Also, is tinning just putting some solder on the wire before actually soldering it in place?

One more thing. Considering my lack of experience, should I just build one straight forward and try mods later? Or should I try to do the desired Mods in the initial build?

Somebody with a little knowhow, please guide me.

The first thing you need to do is learn how to solder. And not by buying a BYOC kit and starting there. If you do I can pretty much guarantee that your pedal won't work the first time you fire it up. Stop by your local Rat Shack and see if they have a kit of some kind that's used to teach a person how to solder. If not buy a few resistors and caps and a small project circuit board and start there. While you're there pick up a pencil style soldering iron with a conical tip and about 25 watts of power. Also get some resin core solder (not acid core) that is about 1mm in diameter.

Once you've developed your soldering skills build your pedal to stock specs first. You can worry about mods later. You want to get the basic circuit up and running before you go making changes to it.

Also look at what's left of my "tips for a successful build" thread. It would have been of more help to you if someone hadn't deleted part of it but there are still a few pointers there you can learn from.

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"It’s your soldering."

thanks for the tips man. I think I will heed your advise. I always have a tendency to dive head first into things and learn by screwing up. But I guess building electronic devices is not something that will work for.

Definitely practice soldering first. Go to radio shack, buy a piece or two of blank perfboard, and a pack of resistors. Look at stephen's tip thread on how to solder, or just use google or youtube -- there's plenty of good video tutorials out there.
Once you've got a pretty good grasp on that, then go into the building of the kit. As long as you take your time and follow the directions closely, you shouldn't have any problems.
If you're having trouble during the building at all, come here and ask questioins. I notice a lot of people don't understand something while building, then just assume, do it the wrong way, and come here crying about their kit not working. You'll have less headaches if you take your time, ask questions, and do everything right the first time as opposed to rushing through it and having to go back and fix your errors.
Else, beyond being able to solder and knowing how to follow step-by-step directions, there's not much other knowledge these kits take to build.
I had no electronics experience or training and my pedals all worked their first time.

Hey thanks to Stephan and Jooooosh. I really appreciate the advice. I think I'll head over to the Shack tonite and get some stuff to practice with.

Sounds good, I hope in a few months I'll see a post of yours in the completed build forum =D

just take it slow and steady and follow the instructions and you should be fine, i went fine with my first build with zero soldering experience and i do mean zero, the first time i picked up a soldering iron was to buy it so i could build my first kit and that kit became my practice soldering skills kit, although i won't be posting gut shots of it i got it working straight away which shows how well done byoc kits are for the beginner if they are patient and take their time

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If there's ever an obscene noise to be made on an instrument, it's gonna come out of a guitar! - Frank Zappa

I learned how to solder by taking an board, from a phone I think, and removed the components and then started to solder parts back in. Soldering isn't hard. you only need a bit. A noob mistake is gobbing the solder on.

All the kits are easy, stay away from the VB2 and the EQ, they are a bit more advanced. The hard part is wiring. Get a kit with just 2 knobs at first before you do one with 3 or more knobs.

Also, learn how to DEsolder using either desoldering braid or a solder sucker (both at Rat Shak). You can probably find an old non-working stereo on CraigsList.org for free. There's a lot of practice built right into that. Don't expect to fix it, just practice removing & replacing components on it - you'll get more than your money's worth out of it. ;D

Other sources of free practice junk could be old coffee makers & blenders, solid state radios, boomboxes, clocks, phones or anything without tubes in it. :: WARNING :: Tubes inside usually mean large capacitors and that means possible stored high voltage which can be dangerous. In particular, avoid old TVs like the plague. The stored voltage in the capacitors used to power a picture tube can kill you - we're talking about power in the range of 50,000 volts or more and it's not just static electricity. We're talking dead here. Obviously, anything you work on should NOT be plugged in. Not trying to make you seem stupid, but you said you knew nothing. I'm no expert, but I know this much.

Like everyone else has said - start simple and just get something like the 250+ kit going after practicing on stuff that you don't care about. The 250+ is a pretty simple build, one of the cheaper ones and gives you an idea what the BYOC kits are like. Read the stickies about successful builds by Stephen. Your work doesn't need to be perfect, but if that's what you shoot for you'll likely get better results than if your goal is "Eh - good enough".

Cheers,
- JJ