North Star Fuzz

[Crawf]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had built the North Star Fuzz from the Dragonfly layout section, it looks interesting with lots of knobs to play with and can it be compared with anything else? cheers Crawf.

[petemoore]

  Let's take a look...!
  I'll look more for it later maybe..

[Austin73]

Can you put the link up so we can look at the circuit

Cheers

Aus

[Crawf]

Hi,This is what i have been looking at but i cant find a schematic, Crawf.
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album60

[Dragonfly]

Hi,This is what i have been looking at but i cant find a schematic, Crawf.
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album60

there *is* no schematic for it

essiantially you're looking at a FF with....

voltage lmiting control
mids/fat control
feedback control
bias control
fuzz control
volume control

pretty simple really...the layout is not yet verified, but should be just fine....

AC

PS..i was listening to the song "North Star", by Magnolia Electric Company when i started doing the layout...thus, the name....

[chaddhamilton]

Man, Magnolia Electric Company rocks.  Farewell Transmission is one of my favorite songs...  Rock on Jason Molina!

[Crawf]

Hi again, I missed the obvious,sorry Dragonfly i should have asked you first. I`ve etched the board and have all the parts although if the 2N2369 is hard to get is there a substitute? also what effect would the "starve "control have on the circuit. I plan to build it anyway so i`ll post later when its complete, cheers Crawf.

[Dragonfly]

Hi again, I missed the obvious,sorry Dragonfly i should have asked you first. I`ve etched the board and have all the parts although if the 2N2369 is hard to get is there a substitute? also what effect would the "starve "control have on the circuit. I plan to build it anyway so i`ll post later when its complete, cheers Crawf.

if you have one, try a 2N3903 or 2N3904 ...or any other low hfe silicon...even a 2N2222 should be ok, but the lower the hfe, the better....let me know if the layout works ok...if theres any issues, i'll draw up a schemo for it to compare....

starve...lowering the V+ should make it "fuzzier" and "looser", till it gets to the point it starts gating out...between that knob, the bias knob, and the sustain/feedback knob, you should be able to get lots of great, as well as lots of awful, fuzz sounds !

rock.
  AC

[Dragonfly]

Man, Magnolia Electric Company rocks.  Farewell Transmission is one of my favorite songs...  Rock on Jason Molina!

there one of my favorites...i recently moved from indy to austin, so i dont get to see them as often...though they just played here about 2 weeks ago...great as always....

AC

[Crawf]

Hi Dragonfly, I got the circuit going and all controls seem to work but i cant get it to bias, i used a 2N3904 and a  CV7351, one of a matched pair which i bought from e-bay ( i`ve built the Nitroburner from your layout and they both work fine either both together or with a 2N3904) so i`m not sure how to get it biased properly,cheers Crawf.

[Dragonfly]

Hi Dragonfly, I got the circuit going and all controls seem to work but i cant get it to bias, i used a 2N3904 and a  CV7351, one of a matched pair which i bought from e-bay ( i`ve built the Nitroburner from your layout and they both work fine either both together or with a 2N3904) so i`m not sure how to get it biased properly,cheers Crawf.

it'll be trickier to bias, simply because many of the pots directly affect the bias....

if you set the sustain/feedback pot to 100k, and the starve pot to where the effect is getting the full 9v, you should be ok.  by nature, this fuzz will move in and out of bias (and even shut down at extreme settings) by adjusting controls...

BTW...if you could post a comment in my layout gallery that the Nitroburner layout is veriified, and any thoughts you have on it, i'd appreciate it...just go to the layout and click on "comments" ....

thanks,
  AC