some help for an angry DIYer

[phector2004]

hey guys, love the forums, they've taught me a lot and have been a great help! Unfortunately i'm in a bit of a rut, and was wondering if anybody could give me some advice...

lately i've been really into DIY projects, and stompboxes seem to be great to work on as they tie into my other hobby, guitar.

so i decided to build a germanium fuzz face, thinking it'd be simple. Got the parts from Small Bear and put it all together. Everything worked perfectly, but i had made a big mistake: I didn't choose the right resistors, and my transistors weren't properly biased... luckily, small bear had sent me the resistors they tested the transistors with, and i kind of squished them in under my own resistors, mounting them in parallel. for about 5 minutes i had a vintage-sounding fuzz face. it was insane!! then i moved the pedal and tried to solder it...

long story short, im almost certain i burnt out a transistor with my soldering iron by accident. I've patched up every connection with no result. I'm left with a big disappointment of a germanium fuzz face "muffle" pedal on a burnt and mangled perfboard, but I won't give up just yet. I'm going to tackle it again in a while when i improve my soldering skills, but I just can't face looking at the abomination I've created. What would be a relatively simple project i can make to salvage some of the time, money, and effort I have put into this project? I've seen some simple booster projects, but I already have an overdrive, so is there anything else I can make with parts that can be found at radio shack? (I've also got a 500k audio and 2k linear pot)

thanks again, you guys are awesome!

[jkokura]

Kits from GGG or BYOC can be a great place for a beginner. I recommend those personally.

Also, building a simple project like a fuzz... oh wait - you just did that. Perhaps doing a less expensive silicon fuzz would be another good place to go?

What kind of pedal do you want on your pedal board? That's usually a good place to start as well. You say you have an overdrive - could you build a second? I have a half dozen of them personally, and will build more soon. There's no such thing as too many pedals. Some guys will tell you that the only problem with having 10 DS-1's is that it's not enough.

Jacob

[PRR]

> i kind of squished them in
> burnt and mangled perfboard

? ? ?

I can't be a snob, I've ruined plenty of stuff. But there is some art, craft, and skill to connecting small costly bits in useful ways. Even "squish" takes practice. Just like making notes with steel wires on a stick of maple takes practice.

> I just can't face looking at the abomination

I Know The Feeling.

Go fishing. Don't even THINK about solder for a week.

[phector2004]

haha thanks PRR, i got significantly better at both soldering and "squishing" but you're right, a break is needed!

and to jkokura,

thanks for the idea, i'll look into those sites for ideas, maybe get a PCB to make my life easier
a lot of them seem too complex for a beginner to make on perfboard, although i could just re-build what i messed up with silicon transistors for practice. do they have sockets to plug in transistors so you don't damage them when soldering? those would be neat!

thanks again

[oliphaunt]

phector2004, using sockets for transistors, ICs and other parts is a common practice. Most DIY friendly stores sell them.

[glops]

It took me a few tries to get soldering down.  I've learned that to get good solder joints is to use a Damp sponge (not a WET one) for cleaning in between soldering joint.  Just a touch of rosin flux applied to the perf hole and component helps the solder spread and seems to heat up the joint quicker then apply just the right amount of solder.  I also have one of those steel wool cleaning things for the iron, so I use that and the damp sponge to keep the iron tip clean.  I also use a small knife and shave a little off of the components sometimes.  Clean perfboard is also good...

Keep trying, you will get better.  It can be frustrating but practice and practice.

Want to build something ultra simple?  Bazz Fuss, easy to get parts at rat shack.  Probably get all component and pots for under 5 bucks (not counting a switch or enclosure).  

I also usually test circuits on a breadboard setup before going straight to perf....

[Paul Marossy]

I remember the first few things I built. Some of them worked great on the first try and some of them drove me nuts and I never got them to work. Anyway, when I look at the soldering on my early builds, they really look terrible. The soldering I do these days looks very professional. But I have had lots of practice. Like eight years worth. 

[jacobyjd]

Oh man, I still have the shameful attempt at my first fuzz face sitting in my parts graveyard--a proverbial head on a spike--that reminds me of how dumb I was when I started working on this tiny stuff. I figured porting my skills at working with industrial controls interfaces (think elevator buttons), I'd be able to perf something up in no time. Not a chance.

Now I've got the carcass of one sad-looking Ge transistor with 2 legs sticking up from a mangled perfboard.

If I were you, I'd take a week or so to get over the $$ you spend on parts you burned up, then build a booster, then a silicon fuzz face (WAY cheaper to bork up).

Once you fool around with that crap long enough, you can build the ultimate in fuzzy goodness (IMO): Hot Silicon Fuzz. It'll smoke any Ge fuzz I've ever heard, for cheaper.

[trjones1]

Go with the Dirty Sanchez.  It was designed to be built from parts solely from Radio Shack and it sounds awesome. 

And I second using sockets, especially for germanium transistors!

[petemoore]

  Could be, stick it in the DMM Hfe socket, see if it gives a gain reading.
  Pedal-karma...it can always be worse, fortunately we have the technology to work around such setbacks.

[newfish]

...and even after a dozen or so builds, I *think* I managed to over-heat a silicon Transistor this weekend.

Mental note - if a pedal you like is working, and you want to mod it (again!), build another one, then mod *that* one.

Silicon Fuzzes aren't the fizzy beast they're reputed to be.  Much more stable to use (sounds the same at all temperatures!), much more forgiving to build (soldering etc), and should anything go *really* wrong, parts a re much cheaper to replace.

There's a reason folks stopped using Germanium to manufacture transistors from...

Best of luck with your future builds.

[JFX09]

Once you fool around with that crap long enough, you can build the ultimate in fuzzy goodness (IMO): Hot Silicon Fuzz. It'll smoke any Ge fuzz I've ever heard, for cheaper.

This one ? I'm revisiting my silicone FF and I'm not sure I like it, so, that's why I'm asking. And phector2004, don't worry it'll eventually sink in, and you'll still get moments like these anyway 

[jacobyjd]

That's the one. I've been pimping it to anyone who wants a good fuzz without all the drama. The one I built makes all others pale in comparison for versatility. It won't do farty stuff, and it's not a big muff, but for a FF sound, I haven't seen nor heard better.

I've used it as a full-on fuzz, an overdrive into a clean amp (that's stretching it a bit), and a booster into a dirty amp (sounds amazing) in all kinds of situations, and it shines every time.

It's not super-simple though, but it IS harder to mess up for a beginner solderer. There's a vero layout for it in the gallery that kept things simple and clean for me--it fits perfectly into a 1590 B with no room to spare.

[svstee]

All Ratshack parts and a very good layout for a beginner:
http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/NoisyCricket/MarkII/NoisyCricketMarkII_RadioShack_Rev2.pdf

Check out his whole site!

[phector2004]

thanks again for all the ideas!

not sure if i really wanna google "Dirty Sanchez pedal"... might lead me to some dirty fetish site, but the hot fuzz looks like a great future project! going to look at some of the other circuits too!

[Kearns892]

I can second Josh's recommendation for the Hot Silicon Fuzz. It's a great sounding pedal.

[phector2004]

Don't really like resurrecting old threads, but I'm too impatient to wait for my next pedal to ship, so i whipped out my multimeter and tried fixing this thing...

followed advice on the debugging tutorial. I actually started off by checking if all the components were wired up by measuring resistance across resistors from other components and everything was normal. not sure if its equivalent to using an audio probe, but it makes sense to me that if the leads were badly soldered/not connected, it would tell me immediately. i also rewired my board to the jacks, etc, so i tested those and all was fine.

my only problem now is I'm not getting any readings unless i play through my blues driver fully cranked. After boosting the signal, i need to actually PLAY notes to get voltages, but these vary a lot with how loud the string is vibrating, and its a huge pain to measure

basically though, im getting what i should expect in terms of biasing (base more negative than emitter relative to ground)
but there is absolutely no gain whatsoever. to get any sound out of it it has to be overdriven, at which point it fuzzes a bit at high fuzz levels but is completely clean at medium levels and below (mind you very soft compared to when bypassed). At max fuzz, it starts gating... is this normal?

i'm a bit pleased that its doing SOMETHING now that i've rewired it but I can't explain the lack of gain!

Any suggestions on what is wrong/what else I can do?

I can try and post the voltages if needed. Without boosting, everything is 0 though (using lowest setting on multimeter)
Otherwise I'll scrap it and reuse the case for something else