Animato transistors

[Nic]

So, to cut short, I've bought a set of NTE-102/NTE-103 as per AionFX build docs almost two months ago on ebay from a reputable seller. But the delivery went really wrong... stayed a full month at the transporter facility, then started going a few places in the US to finally attenpted delivery, refused delivery, again a few cities and then return to sender. I'm in Canada by the way.

So I went with these transistors because from my understanding, they are fairly recent and build to specs. But I can't find a set to be shipped in Canada for less that 45/50$ cad.

Are there any good and reliable replacement that could be used in that circuit ?

 

[Cybercow]

TBH, most any NPN/PNP Ge BJT pair with low leakage and a gain between 80 and 150 will do. Those two BJTs form a Sziklai-pair. In a typical application the Sziklai pair acts somewhat like a single transistor with the same type (eg, NPN) as Q1 and with a very high current gain (β). The emitter of Q2 functions as a collector.

Aion's "Polaris" (Animato clone) has this to say about alternate BJTs for the NTE102/NTE103 . . . .

"The original Animato uses current-production NTE102 and NTE103, a pair of complementary PNP and NPN germanium transistors, readily available from several places such as Newark, Farnell, Parts Express, Amazon, eBay, etc. They’re not cheap, but neither are old-stock germanium transistors.

Small Bear Electronics has an article on the Sziklai-pair Rangemaster that is very close to the input stage of the Animato. They also sell a Sziklai pair of germanium transistors for the project. These should work, but note that the exact bias resistor values are specified for each transistor set, so you will want to use those resistor values instead of the ones from the Animato."

What, if any, NPN/PNP Ge BJT pairs might you have on hand?

 

[Laundryroom David]

So, to cut short, I've bought a set of NTE-102/NTE-103 as per AionFX build docs almost two months ago on ebay from a reputable seller. But the delivery went really wrong... stayed a full month at the transporter facility, then started going a few places in the US to finally attenpted delivery, refused delivery, again a few cities and then return to sender. I'm in Canada by the way.

So I went with these transistors because from my understanding, they are fairly recent and build to specs. But I can't find a set to be shipped in Canada for less that 45/50$ cad.

Are there any good and reliable replacement that could be used in that circuit ?

2n3903 for Q1 and a low gain, low leakage PNP ge for Q2. I can send you both if you want.

 

[Nic]

What, if any, NPN/PNP Ge BJT pairs might you have on hand?

Right now, nothing. I'm still new to this and dont get everything about hfe and leakage.

I may browse small bear to see what they got.

2n3903 for Q1 and a low gain, low leakage PNP ge for Q2. I can send you both if you want.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the offer, guess I'd need to know how to bias those then...


I'm not in a rush to build this, but want to know my options.


Thank you !

 

[Cybercow]

Right now, nothing. I'm still new to this and dont get everything about hfe and leakage.

I'm not in a rush to build this, but want to know my options.

Understanding Hfe (gain) and leakage is going to require some reading on your part. As I suspect by now, you know that pedal building and troubleshooting requires some knowledge of electronics. Such knowledge comes from reading and there are plenty of free resources on the topics of pedal building, parts identification, basic circuit studies & analysis and so much more. You'll be amazed at what Google searches will reveal.

 

[Nic]

Understanding Hfe (gain) and leakage is going to require some reading on your part. As I suspect by now, you know that pedal building and troubleshooting requires some knowledge of electronics. Such knowledge comes from reading and there are plenty of free resources on the topics of pedal building, parts identification, basic circuit studies & analysis and so much more. You'll be amazed at what Google searches will reveal.

I'll need to get my hand on a tc1, that could help I guess.