Hey guys - I'm about ready to solder up this little kit I got - http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/QK17

I think everything is in place - but one quick question - does that 8 legged gizmo, 386 LM, have the other 8 legged gizmo piggybacked onto it after I solder it in??? Can't find any more holes!!??
As I type this I know it sounds like a joke but I'm serious, I can't even find the "smiley face"!!!

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My educated guess is no.  Looks like the board comes complete with the LM386 amp chip.  Would be no reason to add another.  Did you order a separate chip for this project?

I think the other thing goes under the lm386 to protect it from the heat of soldering. I think.

OK - got everything soldered but that - none of these things are marked but it looks like one thing plugs into the other but I'm not sure which is which - better study it a bit more!!!
Wish I had noticed that I could have had it assembled for $5 before I hit "SEND"

OK - after reading the list of ingredients I noticed that there is a 8 pin socket - so I guess that is it!!!

Everything soldered - speaker connected, piezo connected, led connected.....

Time for the battery............. and..........

led does not light but I am getting a slight hum from the speaker sooooo either the piezo is nfg or.......

I'll try my other pickup that I know works.....

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

PCB are finickety little sobs....not much luck...I had the 2 resistors switched (opposing colour coding instructions) I'm getting sound, but crackly and crappy and for some reason if I hang onto the battery I pick up a radio station!!!! Oh, I wish I was joking!!!
I'm at the end of my frustration quota so one more try in the morning then into the trash bin it goes and try something else....but man, I hate failing....

OK - too many variables!!!
I have it working but not strong. I think my diy pickup (from a wallwart) may not be strong enough and I may need to try a few more speakers to find a compatible fit. I also had to adjust the trim dealy (back it off). Still can't figure out why I'm picking up a radio station.

So far it doesn't seem much louder than without, but I didn't burn down my shop or pitch it out the window so I guess I made some progress.

Coming late to this. One of the things is the 386 chip. The other is it's socket.

If you look on the top of the chip, it will say 386 somewhere. The socket has a notch at one end. My 386 chip does not have a notch, but has a dot on the top instead. The dot end of the chip matches to the notch end of the socket.

Thanx Dave - It took a bit of looking to see which way the chip fit in, murphy's law and all. Things look like a bit of a mess right now - with all the screwing around I kind of wrecked some stuff on the PCB so I have jumper wires all over the place. I've taken the switch right off, LED still doesn't light but I've got sound. Tomorrow I will try it with my "real" guitar. I'll probably still use it in my current build with a different switch and LED wired in differently.

LOL I have been into this all winter. I build in my garage, which isn't heated, so this was something else I could do.

Right now I am trying to build a Ruby amp, also 386 based. You might want to get a small bread boad set up for initial building and testing. Basically, it allows you to just plug stuff in without soldering. Then once you have it right, go to a circuit board.

Also, on the net there are data sheets for all of the components. That can help a lot with chips and transistors..

I went and bought a book, Electronics Demystified - Hard stuff made easy to get a better understanding of,what I was trying to do.

I think there are some people,on this forum who really know their stuff. I'm not one of them. Every day is a learning curve. But,it boggles me that I have the potential to grab ten bucks worth of "stuff" and make something I used to pay a hundred bucks for.

Oh Man!! I am the "Red Green" of electronics!!!! I have seen those bread boards and wondered just how they worked - I figured that's what it was. I would just buy lots of bread boards and stay with that.

Hey Dave, I just noticed that you are in Barrie?? I'm up here just north of Craighurst. Small world, Eh!!

You are about 15 minutes from me. We will have to go for coffee.

I got a bread board after totaling 6 perf boards trying to make a pre amp. I kept burning the transistor.

The bread boards are no good for a permanent installation. Everything is pretty loosy-goosy. What they do let you do is replace individual components without the need for a solder sucker. So you can try things.  

Also, there are some great schematics out there that are really simple if you can find the parts (Tillman Preamp, Francis Deck Bass Preamp ( I am using one of these now). Ruby Amp, Noisy Cricket Amp, Punch Amp) .  The downside is there is no printed circuit board for them or the pcb costs more than the parts, so you are fabbing on perf board.  It is almost impossible to take apart after.  This way you don't have to ditch a bunch of components when only one has failed.  Also, it gets rid of the problem of cold solder joints on your prototype.  If it works on the bread board, if you do everything right, it should work on the PCB or perf board. It cuts down on your trouble shooting.  This is not so much on a kit, but on a perf board, you really don't know where to start.

The bread board works like this:

On each side there is a line of holes marked red.  This is a positive line from top to bottom.  Similarly there is a set marked blue.  This is your negative line top to bottom.

There is a trough running down the middle.  This is a break between the left and right side of the board.

On each side of the trough, the horizontal lines of holes are connected.  So it is like a wire running side to side from the inside of the positive and negative lines through to the trough for each line of holes.

In your case, the 386 IC straddles the trough. So you can take off on one side from one set of pins and take off from the other side on the other set of pins.

If you get a small board, (I got mine at Sayal, I think cheapest they had), also get (a) a little box of jumpers and (b) a set or two of little alligator clip wires to connect from the board to things like jacks, speakers, switches etc.

As for being Red Green (one of my heros by the way - Cigar Box Guitars would definitely be Red Green Approved!), if you ain't used duct tape instead of solder yet, you ain't done a Red Green yet. :-)

I used a separate "socket" to hold the 386 chip in mine so I would not fry the chip. Sounds like that is what you have, solder the socket in place, then you just plug the 386 into it.

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