Making the same mistake twice

There's always a bit of trepidation whenever I finish an electronics project. I put the battery in, wire everything up and then cross my fingers (and toes, for the extra bit of luck).

With guitar pedals, there's two steps of testing, first checking if the pedal lights up. If it does, cool. If it doesn't the wiring is messed up. Then it's time to check to make sure the pedal works. A few strums on the guitar, and a few twists on the knobs and it's either joy or pain.

Yesterday, I finished the most complicated kit I'd built in a while, a BYOC Flanger. I plugged the cables in and it lit up. Then I strummed the guitar... Nothing. Whenever this happens, my stomach drops.

Fortunately, a quick scan of the board revealed the problem, I hadn't installed any of the IC chips into their sockets. I've made this mistake far too often, but it's one of the less depressing ones because at least it's so easy to fix.

So, I put the chips in and it worked. It's a really cool sound too, I'll post pics soon.