Can you damage a pedal's transistors by running an SHO through it constantly?

[joeychickenskin]

Hi

About a year ago I built a Foxx Tone Machine from a kit. At first it had loads of rich nasty fuzzy  harmonics that hurt your ears after about half an hour especially when the octave was engaged.

A year on the octave is still there and it works perfectly but it's a lot 'cleaner'. I run an SHO all the time as I have a Squier tele with P90s that need just a touch more treble-bite so i wondered if it was that, the other thought, which has just struck me is that the transistors are socketed and may be loose.

It's kind of academic because now the fuzz without the octave is a beautifully buzzy gated fuzz and being less messy helps the sound it has developed, it was more that I wanted to be mindful of perhaps damaging other pedals if it was possible.

[mcknib]

I wouldn't think you could damage transistors in another pedal using a sho.

Perhaps a loose transistor in your Foxx TM could mess with the biasing if it's not making a good connection and creating a higher resistance I usually when I'm happy with a circuit solder one leg of the tranny into the socket to stop it happening with all the potential banging etc from lugging it about.

I use a small croc clip as a heatsink and wack a blob of solder on

[R.G.]

Can you damage a pedal's transistors by running an SHO through it constantly?

No.
Not if it's built properly and the parts were not already damaged.

About a year ago I built a Foxx Tone Machine from a kit... At first it had loads of rich nasty fuzzy  harmonics that hurt your ears after about half an hour especially when the octave was engaged.
[...]now the fuzz without the octave is a beautifully buzzy gated fuzz

A change into gating behavior is a good clue to the bias on a transistor shifting. It is highly likely that one or more of your electro capacitors is either defect or inserted backwards.

[joeychickenskin]

That's great,

I'll leave it as it is at the moment as the sound is accidentally something pleasing but I'll know where to look if it changes/gets worse.

Thank you

[JonC]

A change into gating behavior is a good clue to the bias on a transistor shifting. It is highly likely that one or more of your electro capacitors is either defect or inserted backwards.

I'll second this, recently I was noticing a weird low frequency 'thump' coming out of a preamp, checked it out and sure enough, I had a electrolytic cap on the output inserted backwards.