AC-128 transistors?

[burningwater]

Anyone know where to get a bunch of these? I built my own fuzz circuit with a set of NOS I got off ebay. It sounds great and Im thinking of making a bunch to sell but cant find a supplier in the U.S. Ive heard they still make them new and if they sound decent that would be fine with me.

Id like to find a solid supplier so if I wanted to make more I could get them without having to go to ebay.

Also may be interested in doing a si version with BC108s or 109s if you know where I can get those too.

Thanks

[Hiwatt25]

Bump cause I'd like to know too. 

[goodrevdoc]

The BC's you can find workalikes at smallbear. I have used them in a siliface and they sounded pretty good. If you can find a source of AC128 in modern production, please, let us ALL know!!!
-justin

[Stephen]

http://www.digitroncorp.com/search/?PartNums=AC128&gclid=CKqt-aWdxYcCFQlTVAodegSLsQ


Here are some in NJ

There are others!!!

[darron]

i have a source for excellent new production ones that have high (non-leaky) gain. they are made in the uk.

rswww.com

there's also an australian branch for the aussies. there may be other branches in usa?

RS Stock no. 293-909

here's a pic i took



they look really cool in comparison to the vintage tin can style ones actually. they are those kind with the red dot on them.

[puretube]

pay 1/3rd for singles, compared to the 100+ price above:
http://www.reichelt.de/

[Austin73]

Bardwells sell them for 60p each which is pretty cheap i would have thought

[blanik]

i have found a dozen or so of those in my dad's stuff (AC 128) i needed two so i checked them all and when put in the meter some of them start around 150 hfe some around 80 hfe and they all go down at different speed (some go down quickly and others quite slowly) is it what's refered as "leaking"?
and what's the normal hfe for those? (two of them had around 300 hfe?!)

i also found 2 Gen Elec 2N508 wich are supposed to be low noise Ge PNP anyone ever heard of those?

can you use "leaking" Ge's for a project?

R.

[darron]

i have found a dozen or so of those in my dad's stuff (AC 128) i needed two so i checked them all and when put in the meter some of them start around 150 hfe some around 80 hfe and they all go down at different speed (some go down quickly and others quite slowly) is it what's refered as "leaking"?
and what's the normal hfe for those? (two of them had around 300 hfe?!)

i also found 2 Gen Elec 2N508 wich are supposed to be low noise Ge PNP anyone ever heard of those?

can you use "leaking" Ge's for a project?

R.

300 sounds too much, unless they were just touching the soldering iron! hFE changing isn't leakage, it's more likely that your fingers warmed up the component, and as it was sitting in your dmm it cooled down and therefor lost gain. you can't measure leakage through hFE..

you need to read all of this and it will explain everything:

http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/fuzzface/fffram.htm

[R.G.]

It's interesting to note that digitron also has "NKT275" devices in stock, with a 2003 date code.

Here are the facts on germanium:
- Germanium is easy to make transistors from compared to silicon. It was a kind of beginner semiconductor for humanity.
- Germanium has lower technical performance in general and worse leakage in particular than silicon.
- The things that make germanum good for musical pedals are all side effects of how they are made, and are not found on germanium transistor datasheets.
- Germanium became unavailable in small quantities to DIY pedal makers for economic, not technical reasons. The electronics world in general quit using germanium as soon as they could.
- Old, leftover stocks of germanium devices have gotten increasingly picked over since the DIY effects revolution of the last ten years and since I published how to select good ones.
- There is no reason that new, good performance germanium transistor can't be made, in every datasheet parameter as good and probably better than those of the germanium golden years. It may be technically difficult as well as uneconomical to make germanium as bad as they were made in the beginning.
- In fact, germanium never completely stopped being made, but sales of such devices were small and primarily to military organizations, so the prices were high, as were minimum quantities.
- New manufacture germanium may or may not have the qualities that make it good for audio effects. As I noted, these qualities do not appear on datasheets. It's an interesting speculation, though.

Back when I was selling parts and PCBs, I found a couple of such companies. One of them flatly told me that they'd make whatever devices I wanted if I would place an order for 1000 units minimum. At the time I could not afford to tie up that much money on speculation.

It would be good for the effects world if such parts could be had for a few bucks each and were reliable.

Failing that, we're stuck with re-testing old stock.

[RedHouse]

...pay 1/3rd for singles, compared to the 100+ price above:
http://www.reichelt.de/

puretube, can you post a direct link to the transistors on that website? (I can't read the language to know how to navigate)

Bardwells sell them for 60p each which is pretty cheap i would have thought

Can we get a link to Bardwells?

[puretube]

top left is a search-field, named: "Suche";
type "ac128", and hit the "GO"-button...

no direct linking...

(won`t help anyway, if you can`t order over the language-barrier)

[Gilles C]

Interesting to know they even have 4 GE transistors.

http://www.reichelt.de/index.html?SID=15E6xSLNS4AQ8AAAUaDq8d554d8f663de40e72b39e04056e74449;LASTACTION=2;SORT=artikel.artnr;GRUPPEA=A1;WG=0;ARTIKEL=AC%2520128;START=0;END=16;FAQSEARCH=TRANSISTOR;FAQTHEME=-1;FAQSEARCHTYPE=0;STATIC=0;FC=8;PROVID=0;TITEL=0;ACTION=2;GRUPPE=A18

and RSWWW.com has this for Global Export

http://www.rs-export.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/searchBrowseAction.do?obs=sObs&name=SiteStandard&No=0&N=0&Ntk=I18NAll&Ntt=ac128&Nty=1&D=ac128&callingPage=/jsp/homePage/homePage.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@1187569467.1159116045@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdaddiljejlkjcefeceefdffhdfin.0&cacheID=gxie&Nr=avl:gx


But they are...

http://www.alliedelec.com/

in North America. But they don't seem to have the AC128

Gilles

[Manolo Dudes]

i have a source for excellent new production ones that have high (non-leaky) gain. they are made in the uk.

rswww.com

there's also an australian branch for the aussies. there may be other branches in usa?

RS Stock no. 293-909

My own experience with AC-128 trannies from RS is that they sound abysmal compared to the old ones, sorry!

[darron]

i have a source for excellent new production ones that have high (non-leaky) gain. they are made in the uk.

rswww.com

there's also an australian branch for the aussies. there may be other branches in usa?

RS Stock no. 293-909

My own experience with AC-128 trannies from RS is that they sound abysmal compared to the old ones, sorry!

did you just build it with the standard layout or did you customise it at all?

that was my first impression. i have some nos ones that sounded better. these rs ones are much higher gain. i played around with the 100k resistor with a 200k trimpot and found something i liked though. fundamentally it sounded the same is my tin cans, tonally it was a bit different (i think anyway). it still sounded good. different didn't mean bad for me.

[MetalGod]

Back when I was selling parts and PCBs, I found a couple of such companies. One of them flatly told me that they'd make whatever devices I wanted if I would place an order for 1000 units minimum. At the time I could not afford to tie up that much money on speculation.

How much are we talking here RG? - I'm sure we could get together an order of that size if people here chipped in.  I'd go for 50 if they were low leakage devices based on the OC44 with Hfe in the 75-125 range.

[puretube]

that was: "back when".....

[brett]

Hi
I've previously had wholesale suppliers get quotes on batches overseas (mainly Germany).  Conditions always made it unworkable (e.g. accept/reject the whole $1000 worth).  On the positive side, many batches were more than 100 devices, including one batch of over 900.
cheers

[R.G.]

My offer was from Germanium Power Devices for lots of 1000 units at $3.6? per unit.

I reiterate -
New manufacture germanium may or may not have the qualities that make it good for audio effects. As I noted, these qualities do not appear on datasheets.

[alderbody]

http://www.banzaieffects.com/home.php

Olaf has matched pairs of AC128 rated as low, mid and high gain.

he ships worldwide.