Red Llama in the process

This post has some pictures of current build, a Red Llama with mod, for a friend. Because I'm building this for someone and not for myself, I have pay extra attention to detail. Here are some photos and some ways to make sure there is a solid connection between the component and the board.

For all the builds on this site, I use IvIark's layouts. Go check out his site for amazing layouts!

Here is were I started off. I didn't document the drilling and linking of the board because it's not that important. When ever there is an IC included in the circuit, I like to use sockets. These are really useful because out of all the components, the IC has the most chance to get damaged. If this happens, I can simply remove the bad IC and put in a new one without heating up the soldering iron! Unless you use more than the required voltage, 9v from a batterie or power supply, than the chance of frying the IC is very slim.

The IC used in this pedal is a CMOS Hex Inverter (CD4049UBE) which has 16 pins.

With the pins being so close to each other, it is important not to make any solder bridges between the strips. If this happens, you can easily take an exacto knife and score the lines in between the copper strips. To make sure there are no solder bridges, I still cut the lines to be certain, even if the solder joints look good, which they do :P

With all the resistors, I used the volt meter to measure its value. Even though they come in labeled bags, I checked to make sure they are the right resistance and that they work correctly.

Here are some photos of the board with all the components in.

As you can see, everything is nice and neat, just the way I like it.

With ever build, my soldering skills increase tremendously. These are the best solder joints I've ever done!

The mod that I am doing is not to complicated. Simply, the switch can switch between two resistors which as a results increases the gain of the pedal.

To switch between two components, the easiest way is to get a DPDT on/on toggle switch. Them Solder the two components to the outer lugs and leave the two middle lugs blank, like in the photo. Now the two middle lugs will have wire coming out of them that connects to the original placement of the resistor, like in the diagram above.

I soldered the resistors so that they are out of the way and are unexposed.

These are only a few of the many techniques I used to make sure that I soldered the components correctly. I'm trying to put as much care into this project as possible so the friend I am making it for is pleased and impressed with the level of craftsmanship.