Breadboarding Woes

[pryde]

I recently completed building a "beavis board" to start playing around with breadboarding, mods, etc. One thing I know is that translating a schematic to BB does not come easy to me. I have read and followed the smallbear and beavis tutorials and created circuits by following along but doing it completely on my own is pretty frustrating. For example, a simple AMZ booster circuit took me 3 tries (starting completely over) before I got it to work. Not sure I could do it again with start-overs.

Some tips from the pros here sure would be helpful.
How do you "go about" putting the schematic to the BB?
Do you work left to right, center outward, top to bottom, etc?
What general methods seam to work for you?

THanks for the insight!

[jkokura]

I totally identify. It's hard to breadboard effectively. Here's my strategies.


- Do the power stuff first, and use a Multi Meter. If you need 9V, Gnd, and VB, get all of them measuring correctly before moving to the circuit.
- Start at the beginning, work to the end.
- Keep a schem with you, make notes on it, and scratch off parts with PENCIL as you install them.
- Audio Probes and Multimeters are very useful. Use the continuity meter to make sure the appropriate parts are connected and not connected to where they're not supposed to be. Use your Audio Probe to figure out where your signal disappears.

You'll learn more by breadboarding than you'd think. Also, work on fixing the issue rather than starting over. You'll learn more that way too.

I just used my breadboard to design a Reverb. Trust me, it's gonna be awesome if you learn it.

Jacob

[mgwhit]

Jacob has fantastic advice as usual.  See if you can find the Beavis Board projects PDFs on the Beavis Audio site.  He has breadboard layouts for several common effects on there that can get you started and give you layout pointers.  Pay attention to how he does open amp feedback loops and clipping diodes.  Good luck!