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Billy - looks like you used pad-per-hole board. While not a bad choice, I personally find it much easier to use veroboard/stripboard as any horizontal connection is done for you. These are quite commonly used by DIY guitar pedal builders, myself included. Take a look at this site for some examples: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/Generally speaking though, I usually use plain copper clad board and do the iron on transfer/ferric chloride etching route for my electronics projects. I'm also looking into having some professional PCB's produced once I finish a couple things I'm currently designing. Thanks Simon I will take a look at the material you are talking about and order some to give it a try. The last board I used worked well for the op-amp. I had to solder jump between some of the holes because they were to small to fit more than two things in one hole. That is difficult and requires precise soldering technique to do...not so easy and yes I know how but it is a PITB. I made some experimental PCBs a long time ago with acid etching which was a lot of work and nasty chemicals to deal with. I have a small CNC milling machine that I could easily cut through a copper clad board with extreme precision. The programing for that is also a PITB...lol I know Gcode well but... Anyway we should keep in contact about the PCB issues. Thanks, Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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I am transitioning from a builder to a designer and it is a huge leap. I am transitioning into my 70s real soon here and talk about huge leaps.... LOL!! You I will deal with in a bit...lol Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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I will take a look at the material you are talking about and order some to give it a try. The last board I used worked well for the op-amp. I had to solder jump between some of the holes because they were to small to fit more than two things in one hole. That is difficult and requires precise soldering technique to do...not so easy and yes I know how but it is a PITB.
I made some experimental PCBs a long time ago with acid etching which was a lot of work and nasty chemicals to deal with.
I have a small CNC milling machine that I could easily cut through a copper clad board with extreme precision. The programing for that is also a PITB...lol
I know Gcode well but...
Anyway we should keep in contact about the PCB issues.
Thanks,
Billy Stripboard is great, because you never have to put two leads in one hole. I do agree that using ferric chloride is kinda nasty, since it'll stain everything it touches (including skin), but with a little care it's quite easy. I'd absolutely prefer a CNC mill for it though! I am transitioning into my 70s real soon here and talk about huge leaps.... LOL!! It's often not possible for people in their 70's to perform huge leaps, maybe stick to smaller hops 
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The JFETs I ordered came this afternoon. I got an email saying they tried to deliver but no one was home. I wonder who they thought the two cars in the driveway belong to. I live in a third world country called Miami...lol This is the first time FedeX has screw up anything.
THe JFET test equipment that I ordered arrived two days ago at the wrong post office near here and was sent back to the main sorting station. I went to the post office and they said it may show up at their post office tomorrow, then in a day or two they will give it to the postman who has lost four out of the last nine packages that got shipped through USPS.
I ordered a one pound roll of solder from DigiKey. $44.00 for a pound of solder.
So I am in the process of starting to commence to begin to hurry up and sit here...lol
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Well, finally after three attempts I got this to work properly. The problem from day one was counterfeit transistors. They were marked as JFETs but they were NPN transistors As soon as I put a JFET in from Mouser everything started working as normal. This last iteration I built on a PCB. Now I can go back and make the other iterations work. What a PITB!!  The CD player is playing Big Joe Turner through the amp. "Let the midnight special shine it light on me" Counter fit parts....what a concept. I have been told there are a thousand silk screen people willing to put any number you want on a transistor. Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Good one. I knew you'd get there in the end, and yes, from our earlier discussions, that JFET was always the suspect.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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I got a new tester that has been a big help. Was able to test all the caps on Eddies radio.
I was surprised how far out of value they can be and still work. I have a ton of ceramic caps but they are only separated into little plastic bags. Trying to read the numbers even under a microscope is not easy.
The ceramic caps I use in tube stuff are about the size of a penny or bigger.
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Caps are often rated with +20%/-50% tolerance, so if you have a 100μF cap it could be anywhere from 50μF to 120μF with that type of tolerance. Often they're much closer than that, but +20/-50 is not uncommon.
I work here
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Season's Greetings!
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy holiday season—thanks for being part of our community!
The office will be closed for Christmas Day, but we will be back on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) at 6:00am PST.
Team PG
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: The Newly Designed Piano Roll Window
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
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You can see all the 2026 videos on our forum!
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You can see all the 2026 videos on our forum!
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