Re: Resistor Size

[Willybomb]

I just use whatever I've got lying around normally.  I've got stacks of builds that are a mix of carbon, metal film, greencap, box, ceramic, those little blue monolithics...

[Addy Bart]

One thing that I learned from a member on this forum was to check every resistor with my multi meter before using it in a build. Is it monotonous, yes (especially when you have a large resistor count), but it will keep you from potentially making a mistake. My rate of success on first time fire ups went up a lot after I started doing this.  I use a piece of styrofoam and line up the resistors according to the build doc and start measuring them.  It's pretty much fool proof if you go slow when you start putting them on the board.

I've just begun testing them beforehand, however as I don't buy in bulk I'm pretty much using whatever ordered. A value has to be way off for me to ditch it, cheapskate that I am

I'm curious though where others draw the line, and if there are certain parts of a circuit where one should only use resistors with accurate values?

[Stomptown]

One thing that I learned from a member on this forum was to check every resistor with my multi meter before using it in a build. Is it monotonous, yes (especially when you have a large resistor count), but it will keep you from potentially making a mistake. My rate of success on first time fire ups went up a lot after I started doing this.  I use a piece of styrofoam and line up the resistors according to the build doc and start measuring them.  It's pretty much fool proof if you go slow when you start putting them on the board.

I've just begun testing them beforehand, however as I don't buy in bulk I'm pretty much using whatever ordered. A value has to be way off for me to ditch it, cheapskate that I am

I'm curious though where others draw the line, and if there are certain parts of a circuit where one should only use resistors with accurate values?

I think most people are just checking the value rather than tolerance.  Can't trust vendors or color bands alone.  Of course it does give you the opportunity to check tolerance but I doubt there are many folks sitting there with a calculator making sure every metal film is within 1%. 

[BrianS]

And what Jon just said is what I guess I am getting at. I had some resistors (and this has only happened one time) that were colored coded correct but were not even close to being in tolerance (i think they were suppose to be 47k and were measuring over 56k). There were several on the build doc. Would the pedal have worked with them in there? I don't know but it would have been a complete fiasco trying to trouble shoot the board if it didn't. Now I believe I have had some builds that the doc recommended that certain resistors be spot on as far as tolerance but those have been very very few. 

I also purchased a capacitor meter after building about 30 pedals and measure each one of those also.  It saved me on one bad electrolytic cap. But I am not really measuring for tolerance on anything, just making sure the electrols are good and the box caps are true to their number.  Just added comfort for myself and another part taken out of the equation if the board doesn't work.

[wgc]

I'm curious though where others draw the line, and if there are certain parts of a circuit where one should only use resistors with accurate values?

Its all relative.  You usually can't sub a 100k resistor where a 100R is called out.  But a 110R or 120R will probably work fine. Or 80 or 90R.  My personal general rule of thumb is 5-10%, and in many cases you can get ohms law to work for you by combining two resistors to get the value you actually need. 

That said, experimentation can be fun and many of the amp mods and circuits we have today would probably not exist otherwise.  Make notes and try things out.