Seeking help on Shin Ei Fuzz breadboard

[saison94]

Hey everyone, I'm stuck and frustrated, and was hoping I could come here for some seasoned advice on what's going wrong with this fuzz circuit. I can't get any sound out of it. I've been going by this schematic:

http://www.experimentalistsanonymous.com/diy/Schematics/Fuzz%20and%20Fuzzy%20Noisemakers/Shin-Ei%20Fuzz%20Box.gif

I've built up a few fuzzes on the breadboard and never had issues like this. I'm still learning about biasing and what each stage of the circuit does, but aside from that I just tried to follow the schematic perfectly, and I feel I've done that after multiple re-checking of my layout. I know I've made a mistake somewhere, I just don't know where it is.

The schematic calls for 2SC536 transistors, and that's what I tried to use to start with, but after no luck I tried 2n2222s and still nothing. the 2n2222s are what's in the pictures below. i know the 536s have a different pinout, and when I tried those I made sure to follow the appropriate wiring for each lead.

one thing i did to troubleshoot is just see if i could get signal coming through the first transistor stage, couldn't even get that, at least when the battery was plugged in. i got clean guitar bypass sounding signal out of the first transistor stage when i unplugged the battery.

anyway, if some kind soul would look at my layout and see if they could tell me where i'm going wrong, i'd be incredibly grateful. i took out the volume pot just to reduce clutter, so the only pot is the fuzz pot and then the jack hooked up to what would be volume lug 3. very much want to build this classic fuzz, just can't seem to get it right.

thanks in advance.

pics:

[Solidhex]

There's a lot of stuff going wrong on there. You need to learn what strips of your breadboard connect to each other. There's lots of components you have connected with both ends to the same nodes like to resistor and cap on the positive voltage supply. Both ends of your input cap are connected to each other. Too much to list. Read this to start: http://eecs.vanderbilt.edu/courses/ee213/Breadboard.htm

--Brad

[Tony Forestiere]

I don't think I see a battery/supply.

[saison94]

Thanks. I'm familiar with which strips connect to each other, I guess I just did't grasped how the strips work in relation to component leads, like the input cap being connected at both leads on the same strip. In my mind, the signal travels from the input, connects to one end of the cap and passes through to the other end then exits. What I didn't understand was that the metal strip was sending the signal to both leads. I know, I know. Rookie move. But this forum is where I've always read to come for help, and everyone is a rookie at some point, right

Other than lots of components connected with both leads in the same node, is there anything else that's fundamentally wrong, or is that the only practice in which I'm screwing up? How is the resistor/cap filter on the positive voltage supposed to be placed? I thought I was just following what the schematic looked like, but I guess I'm missing something.

Right on.

Oh, there is a battery supply, I just took it out for the picture so it wouldn't suck juice.

[saison94]

OK, so that was really my only problem. I've got the sound/fuzz now. Totally an embarrassing noob fumble there, but thanks for the tip.

This thing isn't nearly as nasty as I expected though with the 2n2222s. Will have to see what the c536s are like....

[saison94]

Has anyone else built from this schematic? Someone posted this version the other day and it looks like it's probably closer to the original sound:

http://members.fortunecity.com/uzzfay/6trfw/nat6tr.html

[Mark Hammer]

Here is what it should sound like:  http://hammer.ampage.org/files/FY-2.mp3

[MattXIV]

The FY-2 is definitely a two-transistor circuit - there's a gut shot of it here http://members.fortunecity.com/uzzfay/fy2/fy2.html