A litany of dumbassery

I had issues with the clock on the “Cheap Step Pro” it was giving random results, was fine after soldering the socket for the Nano to the PCB :wink:

4 Likes

Did the exact same thing not too long ago, the space was just a little tighter.

3 Likes

Hello, Litany, my old friend…

Correct soldering of din connectors:

What I did:

2 Likes

I was close to doing that myself…

2 Likes

Thank you Mouser for saving me on this one.

Needed a LM4040AIZ4.1 for my VCO. Tayda doesn’t carry them but Mouser and Digikey both do (and for the same price as each other which is unusual.) Figured if I have to place a Mouser order may as well pick up a few other things I need to justify the shipping cost. Built up my cart and somehow “a few other little things” turned in a $50 order. Yeah…that happens. Especially with things like switches - $5 for a (on)-off-on but at least I don’t have to wait a month for it to get here from China.

Place the order…and then realize that I never put the 926-LM4040AIZ4.1NOPB in my cart :man_facepalming:

Great…now I get to pay another $8 in shipping for a $1.80 part. Grrr.

Long shot…let’s give them a call. Actual human picks up right away, no voice mail. And he’s friendly and helpful. Apparently because I paid with paypal they can’t amend the order I just placed :frowning: Nuts…I almost paid with a card but my wallet was in the other room and I was too lazy to go get it.

But…he says he can take care of it. Generates a new order with 2nd day Fedex shipping and gave me the shipping free. :astonished: Yep, they ate the $8 shipping to get me a $1.70 part! Can’t beat that!

Thank you Mouser for saving me from myself on this one!

7 Likes

Not that unusual from what I’ve seen… but DigiKey’s shipping’s cheaper. Except maybe in this case!

4 Likes

I use octopart to compare prices and availability - a lot of prices are the same or similar…but when they’re different they can be massively different. I order from both fairly often but seem to prefer Mouser since I like their BOM organizing tools.

4 Likes

I can report the new IC puller works great, as you can tell by the still straight legs.


It died doing its duty… ass backwards.

6 Likes

Well damn. I have a pair of those sitting in my little toolkit next to me and I never connected the dots as to what it was. You learn all sorts of good stuff in here.

4 Likes

Its one of those devices where at first you think: “psssh why would i need that”. Then after more than a year without one, you wonder why you keep bending your IC legs, and if you just like being frustrated.

4 Likes

That was after I realized I’d completely omitted the trimmer pots from the board, and after discovering the feedback capacitor that was connected to the non inverting input instead of the inverting.

I think the IC turned itself around in a bid to escape me.

6 Likes

All jack connectors should go on the other side?

So, yesterday evening I placed my first order on Tayda… Everything looked good until today, when a message arrived from DHL. Well, I’ve basically forgotten that Tayda is outside of EU, so I have to pay customs, as the order was about 100€. There’s also DHL’s handling fee, so in the end I think I’d go way cheaper ordering from Slovakia.

I suppose we learn something new every day.

EDIT: Double dumbassery! As I’m making a little research now, it seems I won’t be paying customs as the price wasn’t above 150€, but I’ll be paying tax (21%). I’m not sure about DHL’s fee, but even without it I’m still left in the price range of Slovak shop.

2 Likes

Built my mini-ADSR last night…and the darn thing just doesn’t seem to work. Patched my LFO to the input and the output to my VCA…but it just isn’t triggering. With some settings I can just barely kind of get a response out of it…but the LED’s aren’t coming on even when I trigger it manually with the momentary switch.

Looked it over 3 separate times last night and couldn’t figure out what the problem could be.

Which was a real kick in the teeth because yesterday was a lousy day with a medical diagnosis for my daughter I was expecting but not wanting to hear, someone I’ve been “covid dating” for a month dumping me over text, and then finding out my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer (thankfully very early stage and expected to respond very well to treatment, his father had it as well and survived to 95…so we’re not freaking out.) So…after all that sitting down to melt some solder was meant to calm and relax me. Having a PCB based build, and a rather simple one at that, not work…was unfortunately apparently in line with the rest of the day.

Looked at it again this morning…and in the light of a new day my mistake looks rather obvious.

2 Likes

Hmm. Looks like something’s missing.

1 Like

Apparently unlike the decoupling caps which I did install…those three something’s aren’t optional :laughing:

It’s working as expected now :+1:

2 Likes

Reverse Muntzing for the win!

2 Likes

I have missed the same transistor on a couple of builds, as they were not in the parts bin and got forgotten…

1 Like


Did you work at BST in the 90’ ? :stuck_out_tongue:

I took that picture, posted it, looked at it again, and said, “Huh. The screw holes for the top rail are going to want to be drilled right through those pocket hole screws.

So I took those screws out, which involved taking out the middle wood piece, then drilled some more pocket holes, put the screws in there, and put the middle piece back.

Which is something I’m getting good at. Those were not the first holes that had to be relocated once I tried putting things together.

So then in a fit of pique I applied the wood stain.

5 Likes