My big reverb pedal project turned into a smoke machine last Saturday

I was building this FV-1 based reverb from a PCB I got on sale for like $25. Soldered everything up, plugged in a 9V battery, and immediately saw smoke coming from the IC area. Turns out I put the electrolytic capacitor in backwards, whoops lol. My whole workbench smelled like burnt electronics for two days. Has anyone else fried a $15 chip because of a dumb polarity mistake?

2 comments

2 Comments

james99513d ago

Did you check the polarity markings on the PCB before soldering or were you just going by the silkscreen? Some of those cheap boards have the polarity printed wrong and it's easy to miss lol. Always triple check that stuff before powering on.

ruby_murphy13d ago

Yeah that's exactly the kind of thing that gets you. I've burned a couple boards trusting the silkscreen too much myself. It's like how in retail you can't just trust the shelf tags either - they get swapped around by customers or new hires all the time. You gotta double check the box or the actual product itself. Same thing with those cheap PCBs I guess. Always measure twice cut once, or in this case check the polarity three times before you hit it with power.