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Thanks everyone. I also got some input from the man himself yesterday while the site was down.

Can anyone confirm if Mr. Wampler may have left R3 off by accident in the modded schematic?

The link for his mods
http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/mxr-distortion-plus-mods-1

FYI Barry at GuitarPCB carries order switching pcbs for both toggle and stomp switches.

http://www.guitarpcb.com/apps/webstore/products/show/4611320

So what happens with the contest?

Ok so I just placed an order to mouser for the diode and a few other items.

It looks to be in the boost section of the build.

The BOM calls for a 12v zener at D6. As luck may have it I don't have a 12V zener....only a 9v (1n4739), and 13v (1n4743a). I installed 25v + capacitors on my board so I could run the 18v if the urge struck me to reconfigure the jumpers. What is the Zener diodes purpose in this build? And if I socketed and plugged in the 13V zener what should I expect the result to be?

black lead to ground, red to test pad, Multimeter set to vdc. turn trimpot until voltage it in the required range.

So i bit the bullet and decided to buy both brand to do a side by side comparison.
Sparkfun https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10243
Kester http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00068IJPO/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Either way I am set for a long time with solder.

Finally watched the video. Yeeehawwwww lol. Kinda make you wonder if you bought a hakko solder station from eBay if it is actually counterfeit.

Using the radio shack solder I was getting great results and very few cold joints. The MG solder seems to be 9 out of 10 turn out as a cold joint.
Tip takes solder evenly. I am using a fine conical tip (http://www.circuitspecialists.com/tip-f-csi936-solder-iron.html), maybe need to try out a chisel tip.

My solder station - http://www.circuitspecialists.com/soldering-station-60-watt-3dlf.html

I run my digital CSI solder station @ 750 degrees and would nearly burn the board up with the MG solder and still get that cold joint look. I figured it has to be the solder. I just placed an order for the eutectic blend solder and will give it a go.

Thanks I will check it out

I was using the Radio Shack
RadioShack® Lead-Free Solder (SnCu) 0.032"
SN 99.3/CU 0.7
Catalog #: 6400218
Melting point 227°C/440.6°F


I really liked it, it flowed well and I rarely got cold joints with it. Now that my local shack has closed and this specific solder is not available I began to wonder what everyone else is using and why you chose it. I am currently using the
MG Chemicals silver solder
96.5% tin, 0.5% copper and 3% silver
Melting Point 217-221ºC (422.6 - 429.8ºF)
and am having a ton of cold joints even after reflowing. So I am looking for a replacement.

Thanks, I was only finding the straight lug pcb mount and was getting frustrated. Thanks for the quick replies.