Just got my Thor pedal working.

[pd3]

Yup, got Thor working just last night and pretty happy with how it sounds.   I do however deserve a mega-gigantic dope slap.    The pedal was started about 2 months ago.
95 % of the parts and components were from Small bear and a couple of things at Radioshack one, being the circiut board.  I assembled the components on a pad-per-hole board just like the view seen at Runoffgrove.  I've had fine luck doing projects in the past this way.   I was extremely vigilant about double and triple checking every move I made; measured/read all resistors,  made sure I had all the proper caps in bages with values written on the bag, did ohmic and continuity checks at all stages, and felt pretty confident all had come together properly.  Put in the Fets, used sockets, they seemed to bias easily to the recommended voltages.  Fired up good ol' Thor and wallah!!  Dead as a duck in the water.  No sound, no hiss, no buzz, not even a hight pitched squeal. WTF.  All the correct voltages seemed to be appearing at the right places, all grounds met at the right places.  My amp tech even took a look at it after I unsuccesssfully troubleshooted it. He couldn't figure it out.  He asked me if I had made sure the FET's were oriented correctly.  "OH Yeah" !! I told him. "I refered to the data sheet twice on both the 2N5457 and the J201 for the correct pinout.  I really did.  I thought I'd been so thorough on making sure that the FETS were in right, that I saw no need to check again.  Well, you know that big dope slap mentioned a while back?  Son of a bitch. All of them were in backwards.  Can you develop Dyslexia at 53 years old?  It was an embarrasing but grateful find.   Reversed them, plugged in my Strat into Thor, into my amp and had a "Marshall in a box" fest for an hour or so.  Sure, it didn't make my amp sound just like big old Marshall stack but, it got the tone really in the territory enough to make Marshall oriented parts fun and satisfying to play.  I'm an older guy that ends up in bands that play mostly 60's, 70's and 80's, so, I like a stock Fenderish amp, and get the rest of the tones with pedals.  Thor will get me well into Marshall land for those songs that need it.  My concern with all this was,  are these FETs expected to work properly after their Gates have been hit with the full voltage form a battery?  I know one of the FETS gates woukld have seen the full voltage and the others would have seen 4-5 volts.  Do you know if these FET should be able to perform right after being reversed?  I havent actually got to know FETS and their limitations .  OOps , kids are home, time to make the TAcos!  Thanks for listening!!! 

Phil

[clamup1]

i had momentary dyslexia the other day. only one of mine got fried and had to order more. im hoping they come in today.

[edvard]

I'd say if they play OK now, then you're probably good to go.
They're in sockets, so you can easily replace them if you're paranoid.
Someone else might have something to say about P-Layer Erosion or some such thing having to do with the internal microcircuitry, but I've personally found most stock JFET's to be fairly robust.

CMOS and MOSFET's on the other hand...