Breadboarding a Fuzz Face (Hornet) issues

[Pmelius]

Tried changing the 4.7k "gain pot" (currently a fixed resistor) down to 1k to see if that would help - nothing.

[Pmelius]

Tried a couple more things.

Tried going Si/Si, no change.  Tried going Ge/Ge, no change.

Tried moving my output point to be between q2's Collector resistor and the 1k from V+ like some other FF's are - no signal passed. 
Moved the output to the same place on q1 to see if any effect was notable - no signal passed.
Moved the output to the collector of q1 - no change in effect. (or lack thereof)

It's almost like nothing I do has any effect.  It's almost as if I have magically wired my input jack to my output jack isolated from my circuit (I have moved these all over the place, I definitely did not fail this badly  )

[Pmelius]

Can't see anything obviously out of place, a couple of things are obscured but generally looks ok connection wise. What transistors are you using? Definitely got them orientated correctly? I'd check that, then also double check the values of the resistors. A few times i've been going nuts when something isn't working and it turned out i had a 3M3 resistor wired instead of a 3K3...although the pack was mislabelled so not totally my fault 

Double triple checked all my resistors now and they all check out/match the schem and small bear's note that they sent with the transistors.

[PRR]

You can't see electricity. That's why we have Voltmeters. Read the voltage on all three pins of all two transistors and post them in a chart.

Don't make me post that "Take the dang voltages already!" article again.

Simple Ohm's Law will point to some "impossible" combination and some head-bang may suggest a possible fault which has not been found yet.

[thermionix]

Wait, is this PNP?  Positive ground?  Got your battery backwards?  And the big silver electro?

[PRR]

thermionix asks about PNP/NPN. It appears you took a NPN+NPN plan and built it with PNP+NPN. That isn't likely to be happy.

Have you tried it with two NPNs as shown in the Hornet schematic?

> pinout of the Q1 Ge 2n281

Base is in the middle.

One side-pin is closer to the Base; that is the Emitter.

The side-pin further from the Base is the Collector.

[thermionix]

2N281 and 2n5087, aren't those both PNP?

I think his input cap is right, just flip battery and bypass cap.

[Pmelius]

You can't see electricity. That's why we have Voltmeters. Read the voltage on all three pins of all two transistors and post them in a chart.

Don't make me post that "Take the dang voltages already!" article again.

Simple Ohm's Law will point to some "impossible" combination and some head-bang may suggest a possible fault which has not been found yet.

I was actually just reading the "debugging" thread and thought "oh, okay I need to do that."

Q1
C - 4.757
B - 4.648
E - 0

Q2
C - 5.282
B - 4.757
E - .374

[Pmelius]

thermionix asks about PNP/NPN. It appears you took a NPN+NPN plan and built it with PNP+NPN. That isn't likely to be happy.

Have you tried it with two NPNs as shown in the Hornet schematic?

> pinout of the Q1 Ge 2n281

Base is in the middle.

One side-pin is closer to the Base; that is the Emitter.

The side-pin further from the Base is the Collector.

OKAY this was my problem!  I wonder why small bear would sell the Hornet match without explicitly pointing that out...I guess they assume that much knowledge on my end.

So to make Small Bear's transistors work in this circuit I just reverse my battery leads and electrolytic polarity?

Thanks so much for catching this!

[thermionix]

Like I said, I think your input cap is already correct for PNP/positive ground.  It looks like you have the + end toward the input jack, so leave that.  The silver electro needs to be reversed, along with the battery.

[Pmelius]

Like I said, I think your input cap is already correct for PNP/positive ground.  It looks like you have the + end toward the input jack, so leave that.  The silver electro needs to be reversed, along with the battery.

You nailed it.  This is such an 'aha' moment after a weekend of frustration and I also now better understand transistor polarity.  Thanks so much!  So stoked right now, my neighbors must be pissed that I finally figured out this loud fuzz circuit at 10pm hahaha.

[thermionix]

my neighbors must be pissed

That's what we're here for! 

[Pmelius]

So now that I've successfully breadboarded this and played around with it some, I'm going to put it in an enclosure and this whole transistor polarity thing is screwing with my head.

The way I have this breadboarded, my jacks/pots/etc are 'grounded' to my battery's + terminal.  This is all fine and dandy in a breadboard, but if I throw this in a metal case with a 9v jack, that kind screws things up because I would be trying to put 9v on the enclosure if I used a one spot instead of a battery. 

I don't expect DIYstompboxes to hold my hand through every pedal I build...so does anyone have a reference to some information that will help me wrap my head around this specific topic a little more?  Sometimes I feel like it's hard to find information that specifically pertains to my scenario when just google searching.

edit: after thinking about ground as a "return path" instead of "negative" i think i'm starting to figure this out

[thermionix]

First off, you'll need to use a DC jack that is insulated from the enclosure, most of them are plastic-bodied these days.  Then you can use a 1spot as long as you don't daisy chain the power with other, negative ground pedals.  The signal cables will always use enclosure/ground as shield, and would short out the power supply that way.  Hope that makes sense.

[Pmelius]

First off, you'll need to use a DC jack that is insulated from the enclosure, most of them are plastic-bodied these days.  Then you can use a 1spot as long as you don't daisy chain the power with other, negative ground pedals.  The signal cables will always use enclosure/ground as shield, and would short out the power supply that way.  Hope that makes sense.

Definitely makes sense.  I was trying to build this on a terminal strip and I'm guessing there are other measures I would have to take to make this work with other pedals.  Or just use only a battery snap which I don't super dig

[Pmelius]

http://www.muzique.com/lab/fuzzface.htm

If I follow the second diagram in this article, I should make out right?

[thermionix]

I haven't ever done it that way, but I trust AMZ 100%.

[aron]

> No matter what I do, all this circuit does is pass clean signal and I've come to the conclusion that I'm just going crazy and missing something obvious

What do you mean clean.... like how clean and how loud?

[oip]

regarding the polarity issue, batteries last in these circuits for a ridiculously long time so in my fuzz face builds to avoid any potential daisy chain issues i've just used a battery, stereo input jack and no DC jack.  i'm pretty lazy though

[Pmelius]

> No matter what I do, all this circuit does is pass clean signal and I've come to the conclusion that I'm just going crazy and missing something obvious

What do you mean clean.... like how clean and how loud?

When I said this, I meant that if I switched the circuit off my clean signal was exactly the same (if not just a tiny bit louder) than if the effect had been switched on.  We got past all of that though!