Buddy's Breadboard and Circuit Design Notes
- Thread starter BuddytheReow
- Start date
Feral Feline
Well-known member
Buddy, thanks for the schematic — great new name!
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
I use Tiny CAD. DIYLC is just for layouts
andare
Well-known member
Uh-oh, no Mac version. I'll keep looking
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
This took me a while to draw out. I know it's not the best with 21 cuts and 10 links, but I traced the circuit multiple times and everything seems in order. There is one standing resistor (2.2M), but there is room for you to fold it down. I got lucky with this layout in terms of the Bazz Fuss diode: you can either solder one directly to the board of your choice (anode to Diode + and cathode to Q2 base) or you can make it switchable in two ways. You can either use a DPDT switch to go back and forth between 2 diodes (I would suggest trying a germanium and a "standard" 1n4148) or you can build the daughter board for a 1P7T rotary switch. I bought a rotary a long time ago and this seemed like a good way to incorporate it. While drawing this I had to color coordinate my jumpers: red is power, black is ground, and blue is guitar signal. The board itself will definitely fit in a 125b, but with 6 pots plus a diode selector of your choosing it may be worth your while to put this in a 1590bb. I am in the process of heating up my iron on this one to confirm the layout, but if anyone wants to give it a go they're more than welcome to. I will report my success/failure once finished and update this post here.
One quick note on the layout: Volume 2 to output. Will update the layout shortly.
EDIT: see updated layout in below post. This version is not valid
One quick note on the layout: Volume 2 to output. Will update the layout shortly.
EDIT: see updated layout in below post. This version is not valid
Last edited:
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
I fired up the iron and tried my Thunder Fuss on some vero. I had to troubleshoot it a bit and realized I was crossing some streams at 2 points so I added 2 cuts. This layout and schematic are verified. I half soldered in the original diode from the schematic (didn't trim the leads since I will be removing it if/when I box this up) just to test the circuit. I will experiment on the breadboard for a few minutes but I think I will go with the DPDT switch instead of the rotary. This took me 2 bench sessions plus troubleshooting to get this circuit finalized.
Right now in my building process this truly is "From Breadboard to schematic to reality". Running on cloud 9 until I have to clean up my workbench (boooooooo).
I present to you the Thunder Fuss!!!!! Volume 2 to output
Right now in my building process this truly is "From Breadboard to schematic to reality". Running on cloud 9 until I have to clean up my workbench (boooooooo).
I present to you the Thunder Fuss!!!!! Volume 2 to output
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Last edited:
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
Maintenance day today. I’ve been a little unhappy with one of my breadboards, so I swapped it out. Took some time as well to mark some of the dpdt breakout boards with some acrylic pen to let me know where to connect. This is probably a boring post, but sometimes it’s good to clean up the bench even though it happens once or twice a year.
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BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
I've been eyeing up Tim Escobedo's circuit snippets for quite some time during my circuit browsing time and thought now is as good of a time as ever to start going through them
First up, the Pushme Pullyou
This one seems pretty simple when you break it all down. I only had time today to put together the stock circuit sans volume control and it works. I didn't have a 500k resistor so I used a 510k.
Q1 is a simple 1-transistor fuzz circuit. I threw in a 2n5089, but a 2n3904 will work just fine here. Q2 and Q3 are where the octave magic happens. I think it's because they are both out of phase with one being a NPN and the other a PNP. In general, I think this circuit is ok: it's not horrible, it works, but I think needs a few tweaks or add-ons to make this more workable. If you like the sound as is then by all means keep it. At the end of the day these are merely snippets that could act as a standalone effect, but I think they need more refinement. I will judge Escobedo's circuits more of a "look what I made" kind of deal and see what all the fuss is about.
Anyways, if you want some guidance on how to build it here's my breadboard pic if you're interested.
First up, the Pushme Pullyou
This one seems pretty simple when you break it all down. I only had time today to put together the stock circuit sans volume control and it works. I didn't have a 500k resistor so I used a 510k.
Q1 is a simple 1-transistor fuzz circuit. I threw in a 2n5089, but a 2n3904 will work just fine here. Q2 and Q3 are where the octave magic happens. I think it's because they are both out of phase with one being a NPN and the other a PNP. In general, I think this circuit is ok: it's not horrible, it works, but I think needs a few tweaks or add-ons to make this more workable. If you like the sound as is then by all means keep it. At the end of the day these are merely snippets that could act as a standalone effect, but I think they need more refinement. I will judge Escobedo's circuits more of a "look what I made" kind of deal and see what all the fuss is about.
Anyways, if you want some guidance on how to build it here's my breadboard pic if you're interested.
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
Next up we have the Rambler. Using a 386 power amplifier chip and a few diodes you can achieve a heavily distorted octave sound. I did not try plugging this directly into a cab like description says, but I'll take his word for it. Given the few parts needed for this it's pretty good and would recommend you trying this one out.
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
1 post for 2 separate "builds".
First, I finally finished a Micro Protoboard graciously donated by Mr. @PedalPCB himself for the cause of inspiring others to start creating. Between the regular Protoboard and the Micro one, I prefer the larger simply because it allows more real estate to spread out on. That being said, I do appreciate the compactness of the Micro for trying out little ditties or auditioning components.
Naturally, once I finished putting it together I had to build something on top of this build to make sure the first build can work with the second build. Huh? Anyways, here's a very simple booster/fuzz circuit I cooked up in about 5 minutes just to see if the board and protoboard could function. Schematic and breadboard pic are below.
Essentially, this is a blendable input cap going into a single gain stage transistor then to a 10k volume pot. I wanted to grab a different BJT than I normally do (2n5088, 2n5089, or 2n3904) so I gave the BC series some love today with a BC547c. The emitter is jumpered to ground for maximum gain. Frankly, and NPN BJT will work just fine here and you can experiment if you want as well to see what you like.
Dial back the volume on your guitar and this turns into a boost. Dial the input cap pot to the smaller value of the two and you've got a treble booster that works pretty well IMO. Crank your volume knob back up and you've got a light/medium fuzz. Now that I'm writing this it seems that the ideal place for this would be at the beginning of your chain to stack with another effect you have.
5 minutes of my time plus some basic circuit knowledge produced something rather cool. Is it a Booster? Is it a Fuzz? No. I present to you the Boozzter.
Now back to your regular progamming.
First, I finally finished a Micro Protoboard graciously donated by Mr. @PedalPCB himself for the cause of inspiring others to start creating. Between the regular Protoboard and the Micro one, I prefer the larger simply because it allows more real estate to spread out on. That being said, I do appreciate the compactness of the Micro for trying out little ditties or auditioning components.
Naturally, once I finished putting it together I had to build something on top of this build to make sure the first build can work with the second build. Huh? Anyways, here's a very simple booster/fuzz circuit I cooked up in about 5 minutes just to see if the board and protoboard could function. Schematic and breadboard pic are below.
Essentially, this is a blendable input cap going into a single gain stage transistor then to a 10k volume pot. I wanted to grab a different BJT than I normally do (2n5088, 2n5089, or 2n3904) so I gave the BC series some love today with a BC547c. The emitter is jumpered to ground for maximum gain. Frankly, and NPN BJT will work just fine here and you can experiment if you want as well to see what you like.
Dial back the volume on your guitar and this turns into a boost. Dial the input cap pot to the smaller value of the two and you've got a treble booster that works pretty well IMO. Crank your volume knob back up and you've got a light/medium fuzz. Now that I'm writing this it seems that the ideal place for this would be at the beginning of your chain to stack with another effect you have.
5 minutes of my time plus some basic circuit knowledge produced something rather cool. Is it a Booster? Is it a Fuzz? No. I present to you the Boozzter.
Now back to your regular progamming.
Feral Feline
Well-known member
I think I'll lay this Boozzter out on a GPCB little GBOF-board, after I play around with it on the Micro Protoboard.
Thanks for the inspirations.
Thanks for the inspirations.
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
I've spent the past week or so putting aside all electronic projects and told myself just to play/practice. Practice? What's that?
I did this with the realization that I've set aside playing for a long time to prioritize breadboarding, soldering, etc. My chops are horrible and need to get back in the groove of things.
This gave me an excellent opportunity to really try out the Thunder Fuss. I made 2 tweaks to the circuit.
1. The THICK control really doesn't do anything since the bass can be controlled via the Baxandall. If no active tone stack was in here, then yes it would be more useful. I took it out. C1 in the schematic is no longer needed, but I was too lazy to adjust the ref des for the other caps. The circuit starts with C2 and goes from there.
2. Most of my guitars have pretty hot pickups and dialing back the volume knob does change the overall tone in this circuit. Since I have a pot already wired up I decided to make that a PREGAIN knob. I think 100k may be a bit too high considering there's a 1m pulldown resistor right after it, but it works. I think I will keep this here.
Schematic and stripboard layout have been adjusted. I'm REALLY considering putting in the daughterboard for the diode selection. Right now I've got a DPDT switch with a 4148 and BS170 (very boutique-y).
I did this with the realization that I've set aside playing for a long time to prioritize breadboarding, soldering, etc. My chops are horrible and need to get back in the groove of things.
This gave me an excellent opportunity to really try out the Thunder Fuss. I made 2 tweaks to the circuit.
1. The THICK control really doesn't do anything since the bass can be controlled via the Baxandall. If no active tone stack was in here, then yes it would be more useful. I took it out. C1 in the schematic is no longer needed, but I was too lazy to adjust the ref des for the other caps. The circuit starts with C2 and goes from there.
2. Most of my guitars have pretty hot pickups and dialing back the volume knob does change the overall tone in this circuit. Since I have a pot already wired up I decided to make that a PREGAIN knob. I think 100k may be a bit too high considering there's a 1m pulldown resistor right after it, but it works. I think I will keep this here.
Schematic and stripboard layout have been adjusted. I'm REALLY considering putting in the daughterboard for the diode selection. Right now I've got a DPDT switch with a 4148 and BS170 (very boutique-y).
Attachments
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
Finally got around to updating my Thunder Fuss layout. This one is verified and final. Build report to follow.
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
That's pretty sweet looking! Now if someone can make a PCB to get it to fit in a 125b.... I hope someone accepts the challenge...
benny_profane
Well-known member
Your 19x19 layout should work. I think there’s clearance for 22 columns horizontally.
BuddytheReow
Breadboard Baker
The prototype I made with the rotary switch, probably not. Possibly if a dpdt is used...
benny_profane
Well-known member
Take your favorites and put them on the DPDT!
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