Tone Report Weekly Issue 144 | Page 49

The dimensions on the top specify the rows and columns of the stripboard. We are viewing the stripboard from the non-copper side. There is one cut you need to make on the copper side, so that electricity doesn’t flow where we don’t want it. Be sure to make that cut (with a boxcutter, drill, what have you) on the underside of the board, and keep in mind that it is positioned on the board such that the top layer is invisible. If you flip the board over horizontally, the cut will be on the bottom row, fourth from the left. An easy way to get this right the first time is to get a small drill bit and drill right through the top of the board in the marked spot. The diagram also specifies a jumper, which is represented by the vertical black line on the stripboard. The black line simply represents a small piece of wire that will be used to connect rows C and D. I made the circuit diagram such that the capacitors, resistor and diode are the same color as the ones I’m using. The capacitor in the program is orange by default—the point is that color, size and shape don’t matter, as long as one condition is met: The voltage rating is higher than the voltage running through the circuit (nine volts in this case). I typically get 63-volt caps that fit stripboard very well. Resistors have several numbers associated with them, but the only ones we care about are resistance (of course) and wattage. It’s not that we’re going to be doing some serious electrical work here, where watts are a factor; “wattage” in this case translates to “size.” For our applications, quarterwatt resistors are best from a size perspective. Any wattage will work, but may not fit on the board as easily. Potentiometers (herein referred to as “pots”) are the foundation of knobs, and all you really need to know is that they vary resistance. They have three lugs, and we’re going by the convention that, when looking at the flat part with the lugs facing up, they’re numbered 1, 2 and 3, left-to-right. When you see wires coming off the board labeled things like “volume 3,” it means that the row connects to lug 3 of the volume pot. The sockets are a different story. In the future, you can socket literally any component you want. And because only the rows are connected, you can go ahead and use a 3x1 socket, like I did, instead of two 1x1 pieces. Cutting and soldering two small sockets is a real pain and I don’t recommend it. SO, LET’S DO SOME BUILDING! ToneReport.com 49