My first Fuzz Factory

[Elijah-Baley]

I finish it, anyway.
It have much noise with drive at max, perfect with drive at 9/10.
It is ok for now. Lately I could try to build the board again.

[Fndr8875]

Nice! I was dead set on building one. i only have pad per hole right this second, so i started searching for pcbs, i wanted one like the zvex, all i could find was Aion, and one from the UK. Then theres the ac128s, and 5 pots i didnt have. What size did u use? I know he uses the 9 mm ones, they are expensive. Anyway i decided to build a Hyperion. Id love to have a fuzz factory but i just didnt want to have to come off like 50 bucks for all the parts. There is a hyperion 2 that has a sweet oscilation knob, not as crazy as the FF, but i had all the parts, but i @#$%ed it up desoldering pots from the board once i realized there was a 2 with the oscilation knob. Anyway redoing it now. Nice job, id like to hear it if u have any clips. I read u can just use 2 2n3904s and a 3906, listened to a couple on youtube and they sounded pretty sweet. Not as good as the ac128s, but cash is tight for me now, anyway got some vero on the way as im sick of pad per hole.

[Elijah-Baley]

I have to say I made the things easily. The board is from the layout by tagboard, and the pot are alpha 16mm, and not mount on the board. Ieven chosen a large box, BB. So... very homemade and not professional stuff.

I found many months ago two AC128 germanium as PNP transistor, (AC125 could be good enough). I tried with two silicon BC558 PNP, but the sound was too fuzzy and fizzy and harsh. AC128s have a warmer and smoother tone.
The NPN transistor is, as in the layout, a 2N3904 NPN.

I could record some demo with the mic af a phone mobile, and my amp is cheap, so it will be not a good quality.
I can say my pedal sounds good enough, except a little problem of noise with drive to max.

Early we were talking about the Fuzzgod, and seems to be a good alternative to the Fuzz Factory, hearing the demo.

About the tiny pots you can search it from Tayda, if them have those pots I guess cost less than other shop. But I never used it, and I don't know the quality of them. Try to search.
AC128 maybe on banzaimusic.com, (but contact them to be sure are available).

If you need help, just ask.

Good luck!

[duck_arse]

eb - have you been reading this thread?
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=113428.0

down around reply 13 it gets interesting. if you were still on the BB, you could try the diode trick, see if it helps/hinders your noise.

[Elijah-Baley]

Thanks a lot!
On my board it is very very tricky to place a diode before the B of the Q1 transistor, as I got I should to do at least.
I'll consider it for my tests, or some else project.

Now I was thinking about a details.
I link again: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Px8WQV5YD4/UQ0I73d9oxI/AAAAAAAAEuw/Z9plaUkyW-c/s1600/ZVex+Fuzz+Factory+-+compact.png.

then I opted the tagboard layout beacause it had the pulldown resistor and a 100R resistor on the 9v, but I forget the it does. )

The 100 ohm resistor is normally the PSU current limiting resistor. In this circuit it sets the minimum setting of the Stab knob at ~ 100ohms. Max setting becomes ~ 5100 ohms. Strange arrangement.. I guess it acts as a battery sag?

Ok, but now we know the Stab pot was reversed, and when I got it I had already placed off this 100R resistor with a jumper
I wondering why somebody had decided to reverse the stab pot? And why added this 100R resistor.
Maybe is a foolishness, but could this resistor add more stability avoiding my (oscillating?) noise? Because this layout is verified afterall, and I assume keeping the stab pot reversed.
Instead, I wanted to adjust the stab pot and early to take off the resistor.