the SWinGeR bOx!!! schem/verified layout

[pinkjimiphoton]

was dicking around with " a fuzzbox for swingers" by herb friedman outta electronics illustrated from july of 68,
and well, one thing led to another, and this happened...

i didn't have the original transistors, 3391 and 3392 which had an ecb pinout, so i laid it out for common ebc transistors. i tried about 100 npn's of various gains, and what sounded best to my ear in the end was a pair of 5089's, a first... i've never dug higher gain silicon transistors in any fuzz i've built, but in here, it's hip... real nice phat warm overdrive to fuzzy golden sustain. i'm happy with it.

there's a half wave rectifier diode clipper that's always on, and a footswitchable secondary clipper that has a nice balance. asymetrical clipping, the second clipper is a super brite blue 5mm led, and a bat47 shotke.

anyways, a handful of parts, added trimmers to the collectors for both transistors so you can dial in quite a few transistors and get a decent sound. the vero is built and running and verified, works great.

i found the trimmers at the stated gains could be dimed with good result.

it cleans up some when ya turn it down, but it never gets super clean. has a nice long sustain with a pronounced buzzy almost synthy edge..seems to "swell" in a little, possibly cuz it's "overdriving the base" of q2.

anyways.... pictures or it didn't happen...

here's the schematic:



here's a verified vero layout:



please let me know if ya try this and like it...

stupid pedal trick soon

peace out

[akc1973]

I assume that there should be track cuts at c3 & d3 not d3 & e3 ? 

[pinkjimiphoton]

hahahh!! good catch! thanks bro.

yah, other than THAT it should be right. the vero's right, just the description isn't. <facepalm>

[akc1973]

hahahh!! good catch! thanks bro.

yah, other than THAT it should be right. the vero's right, just the description isn't. <facepalm>

No worries, mate. I think I'm gonna build this one! Well, add it to the list anyway....

[pinkjimiphoton]

gimme a couple day bro, i'll shoot some lame ass video of it.

or bread board it... could slap it together in probably a minute or so, there's not much to it!!

i really like the diode clipper part.

socket the transistors and diodes and experiment to see what ya like.

sounds good with everything from 3904's to ge's, bc's, mpsa's, all kindsa crap. some fets will even run in the circuit.

a j201 sounds great for the single diode that's always on... a little brassier than i wanted, but a really nice tone still.

dick around with it, the more ya f with it the more cool shit you can do.

if ya go ge, you probably don't need the 5p caps. but ge may be hard to get much above unity gain.

very classic sounding overdrive/distortion/fuzz.

[pinkjimiphoton]

and here ya go... something old, something new, something borrowed.....

here ya go... the first pic is sized to fit one of them radio shack boxes i like..

whole article. my box is a bit different, the stock is probably more of a fuzz bomb.









i believe this may be the first time this one's been posted on the net.

[LucifersTrip]

that's great!  thanx for posting the article with pic.

these electronics zine ones always seem to be two straight stages, like the Fancy Fuzzbox I posted
http://www.luciferstrip.com/fuzz/fancyfuzzbox-schematic.jpg

what's the "ge" after transistor...the brand?

[pinkjimiphoton]

yah dave,
must be general electric, the 2n3391's or whatever are the same as used in the heathkit fuzz, i have a bag full of 'em.
they're definitely not germanium!!

can never have too many fuzzes.... lol.

i don't think the one i built sounds the same as the original, the original should be pretty wooly cuz of the size of the coupling caps... twice as much bass as mine i guess, between .1 and .2 at 200n i bet it gets pretty phat.

[Gus]

Look at the Bee Baa 2nd and 3rd transistor gain stages

[pinkjimiphoton]

what am i looking for gus?

it looks different to me, the values, the way the emitters are tied to ground etc... i see the 100k/15k voltage dividers, it's similar to the 150k/10k but that's a big tolerance, isn't it?

you gotta remember bro, you have forgotten way more than i'll possibly ever learn!!

i'm not savvy enough to "get it" without BIG CLUES my friend!!

[LucifersTrip]

btw, it looks like they're shooting for a Q2 with lower hfe than Q1




oh, and the "Bud" type cabinet they're referring to in the build instructions is very similar to this...Jimi, perfect for your radio shack enclosure. you can build a clone that looks like the original!

[pinkjimiphoton]

i put the swinger guy on a piece of paper, and used my girlfriends nail polish to stick it on the top.

right now i'm working out where to mount the switches and stuff, but it should look pretty cool.

it DEFINITELY needs a lower gain q2... i didn't even look it up, so thanks dave. a ratio of about 20% seems good, cuz i guess the idea is to generate most of the balls in q1, and then use it to overdrive the base of q2.

i used about 100hfe difference between them, one was 600 something, the other 500.

do you want me to post voltages dave? btw... if you do the generic half voltage, you can get a very broken fuzz that's kinda gated at the expense of some volume.

it SOUNDS like an overdrive. that's the sweet thing. i never really have cared for any solid state fuzzes i've built. this one isn't the end all or anything, but it's a cool sound.

gonna drill some holes and fire my iron, hopefully will be back with some pics later. and voltages.

[jrod]

Thanks for posting the original article, Jimi!!!

[pinkjimiphoton]

my pleasure!!

i have it boxed, but it's acting peculiar... i have to figure out what's up.

it's LOUDER with a BATTERY than with a power supply. and with single coils? forget it. ya gotta use a power supply. then the noise goes away.

but boy.... with humbuckers... butter. it screams..

but it's noticeably more ballsy with a battery than the power supply, so i'm scratching my head hard..

and can't debug, i gotta gig tonite.

i think you guys will like this one.

[Gus]

I did some DC sims.
Here is one
This one is changing one resistor value note the collector voltage change with small changes


Circuit is to sensitive to resistor values and power supply voltages

IMO the Bee Baa 2nd and 3rd stages are a much better way to build this type fuzz


Measure the collector voltages with different batteries or power supply voltages.

EDIT
8VDC, 9VDC and 10VDC sim  I don't like the voltage sensitivity, that is most likely what you are hearing with the change from battery to power supply


BB type bias note the change is smaller

[jrod]

^^^So, Gus, it looks like the only change is adding the 1.5K resistor from Q1 & Q2 emitter to ground is the only change you made.

Is that the difference in the Bee Baa circuit you are referring to?

Interesting how there is not near as much change in collector voltage after changing the supply voltage!

[pinkjimiphoton]

that is amazing. i think you nailed it gus.

that would explain why it runs better on a battery...there's a definite sweet spot where it sounds best.

i'm gonna try to re-do this circuit with resistance to ground from e to c. in my experience, grounded emitters are wide open, but more susceptible to noise/hash/rfi/all of the above, particularly with single coils.

i'm thinking i'd like to try 100 or maybe 500 OHM trimmers, to see if there's a nice sweet spot in that range. i really dig the tone, especially on my les paul. it's way more aggressive with a fresh battery, so if i can find the sweet spot to make it run like that all the time, i'll be psyched.

thanks too gus for the phone call, always good to chat with you. i learn more in 1/2 an hour bs'ing with you than i do in decades on my own.

so i'm thinking your sim is the way go.

but one question.... can you look at the difference in the waveform? or will that make it more stable?

i REALLY liked your idea of setting it up to bias at 7 volts and regulate it there so you can feed it with 9v and have it be nice and stable.
i think that would be cool, so i'll try and see what i can do. if we can nail the tone i'm getting, i think you'll be surprised. it's REAL tube-ish sounding, a nice overdrive that crosses over to distortion then fuzz.

[Soup39]

What about adding a sag knob/control?  You could dial in a "dying" battery to the sweet spot?

[Gus]

Another thread LucifersTrip makes a good point about the LPB needing selected transistors for biasing with the stock resistor values.  Note the use of 360 or 390 ohm with the LPB.  Note the use of 1.5K in the Bee Baa
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=104730.0

The Bee Baa circuit is not the same as the grounded emitter but with clipping diodes the sound might be close.  The cap bypass on the emitter resistor increases the gain

I have built a fuzz with Bee Baa like gain stages between jfet input opamp amp buffers (input and output)

Read PRR's and R.G.'s posts in this thread http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=105024.0

[pinkjimiphoton]

What about adding a sag knob/control?  You could dial in a "dying" battery to the sweet spot?

problem is, the bias is really tricky, and you'd need to bias UP i think.. fresh 9v is almost 10 volts.

the sweet spot is ridiculously small where it sounds great, any voltage change really seems to affect it.

if you brown it out, you can make it fuzz, but it can't hit unity gain... this thing wants higher power than a lot of fuzzes do