mad breadboard happenings

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Stuart
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mad breadboard happenings

Post by Stuart »

Well it's not the twilight zone or anything but...


I think what has happened is one of the links between groups of holes on the positive bus has broken. Has this ever happened to anybody? I mean it seems kind of unlikely to me but it is the only explanation I can come up with for why I now need a single jumper in the bus when I never have before. How could I test this?

It has taken a lot of messing with to get my circuit to work again (it was a tried and tested transistor muff fuzz that I've built more than once before) and I'm really happy about it but it really annoys me that I don't really know why it stopped or why this new jumper fixes it, I honestly just started sticking jumpers in the bus out of desperation rather than any theory.
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timhulio
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Post by timhulio »

You can test the continuity with a multimeter. Debugging anything is virtually impossible without one, so get your hands on that shiz.
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Post by Stuart »

Thanks Tim, I finally got it working late last night and didn't think of using my meter to test it, I was briefly happy, then very sleepy... Yeah there is now a gap in continuity across 2 of the 4 groups of six holes on the positive side (but not negative). Weird thing is the same 'fault' occurs on the right as well as left side. How could this have happened?

Series of events goes like this....I decide to build a pedal for a mate of mine, because I'd just found out at 25 years old he'd managed to contact the serious childhood disease mumps and thought he might need cheering up. so..

I put a muff fuzz on the board, it works, I change the capacitor values for more treble. It worked but...

I decide to try and do an extra gain tuber screamer, I put the tube screamer on the board, it works. I lowered a resistor value for the extra gain, it works.

But I change my mind, pulled the screamer off the board, and put the muff fuzz back on...It doesn't work!

I spend to days checking a re-checking the circuit, and even put a new dc jack and did a little rewiring of my breakout box, i.e fresh wire coming off the new DC jack, because I figured from shifting the IN and Out wires up and down the board that the problem was in getting power to the transistors.

Finally last night (actually after googling up a shortscale thread where I guy is building a double Muff, and his board never had continuity all the was down his power busses) I started randomly jamming jumper wires across stuff. And found bridging this one gap works.

The breadboard isn't really that old, probably has had less than 15 circuits put on it.. Is it time to put it down to bad mojo and get a fresh one?
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