I've made a couple of howlers over the last couple of years. I tend to build 'dead bug' style on plain copper board with just a few lands cut for the main ins & outs. Keeping track of the pin order with the IC's lying on their backs can be confusing! I always mark pin 1 with a dot on the board, but sometimes the dot gets obliterated by a solder joint.
I recently returned to a half-built project (new IF receive IF strip for my homebrew Topband transceiver) and was horrified to see I'd got all the pin connections to the sync demod chip (a venerable TBA120) backwards.
So I sighed heavily and got stuck in, putting it all right. A bit of a mess compared to the original clean construction but at least it would now work......
Of course it didn't work and the PSU went into current limit, but even the limited current was enough to see off my last TBA120.
Needless to say I'd 'corrected' the wiring when it was correct in the first place. Now I'll have to do a new build as the board will be looking very scruffy after the third attempt. This is what you get for NOT THINKING!!
