andare
Well-known member
After months spent procuring tools and parts, the stars (and little else) aligned and here is my first build since last summer. As you can see I totally botched the holes but I like to think the wonkiness fits the nature of this fuzz.
I follow the standard drilling procedure using a hand drill: overlay the drill pattern, printed at 100%, center punch the holes 5 times, make a pilot hole with a 1.5mm HSS twist bit (this is where I mess up), followed by a 2mm and 2.5mm bit, then finish with a step bit. It seems the small bit skids across the surface instead of staying in the divot made by the center punch.
My bit is sharp, I apply decent pressure, I tried slow and fast speeds, maximum and lower torque. Maybe my 12V drill is simply too weak? Maximum torque is only 20Nm...
The real Unpleasant Surprise was the terminal blocks I used to connect the offboard wiring. I got the idea from an esteemed member here, whose name I don't remember, apologies for that. Unfortunately this method doesn't seem to work for me. The terminal blocks I bought have very flimsy tiny screws that often don't work, resulting in the precarious mess below. Behold:
The connections to the breakout board are particularly nasty due to the stiffness of the wire I used. I'm not going to use this method in the future as this build was almost killed by the terminal blocks and I don't trust these connections to hold for long. This is 100% on the crappiness of the terminal blocks I got. It still is a smart method. I just don't jibe with tiny fiddly bits.
Several posts on this forum put me on notice for this build. I expected to have to bias the J201s so I socketed R4 and R6 using a 4-pin SIP socket with the center pins removed - another great tip I picked up from another unsung local hero. My pedal seems to work like it should with the stock values, with a few quirks.
I get around 5V at Q1d and 1.27V at Q2d, which seems within specs, and most of the Onset knob is usable. This being a heavily gated fuzz, it needs decent input to make a sound. My vintage reissue Strat with low-output single coils sunk low in the pickguard is able to open the gate at 8-9 o'clock on the Onset knob.
The only wayward behaviors are the toggle switches, which pop like crazy, and a weird oscillation that appears randomly when toggling around too wildly. The latter may be par for the course with this critter. Truth in advertising!
What does it sound like? If you've heard the demos you know there are a lot of tones in this pedal. It's really bassy and ridiculously loud (unity at 10 o'clock for me). Somewhere in there are standard silicon tones with a lot of booty but of course we're all here for the farty fizzes and quirky velcro skid marks.
True to the spirit of this build, here's a mediocre, incomplete demo that ends abruptly. I couldn't reproduce the oscillation but I did get the weird echo. It's kinda cool but probably a sign the circuit isn't biased correctly. The audio quality is borderline. Really I don't know why I'm posting this. Maybe to cringe at my English.
EDIT: Just noticed i keep calling it a Carcass Fuzz. Sorry, having a senior moment here.
I follow the standard drilling procedure using a hand drill: overlay the drill pattern, printed at 100%, center punch the holes 5 times, make a pilot hole with a 1.5mm HSS twist bit (this is where I mess up), followed by a 2mm and 2.5mm bit, then finish with a step bit. It seems the small bit skids across the surface instead of staying in the divot made by the center punch.
My bit is sharp, I apply decent pressure, I tried slow and fast speeds, maximum and lower torque. Maybe my 12V drill is simply too weak? Maximum torque is only 20Nm...
The real Unpleasant Surprise was the terminal blocks I used to connect the offboard wiring. I got the idea from an esteemed member here, whose name I don't remember, apologies for that. Unfortunately this method doesn't seem to work for me. The terminal blocks I bought have very flimsy tiny screws that often don't work, resulting in the precarious mess below. Behold:
The connections to the breakout board are particularly nasty due to the stiffness of the wire I used. I'm not going to use this method in the future as this build was almost killed by the terminal blocks and I don't trust these connections to hold for long. This is 100% on the crappiness of the terminal blocks I got. It still is a smart method. I just don't jibe with tiny fiddly bits.
Several posts on this forum put me on notice for this build. I expected to have to bias the J201s so I socketed R4 and R6 using a 4-pin SIP socket with the center pins removed - another great tip I picked up from another unsung local hero. My pedal seems to work like it should with the stock values, with a few quirks.
I get around 5V at Q1d and 1.27V at Q2d, which seems within specs, and most of the Onset knob is usable. This being a heavily gated fuzz, it needs decent input to make a sound. My vintage reissue Strat with low-output single coils sunk low in the pickguard is able to open the gate at 8-9 o'clock on the Onset knob.
The only wayward behaviors are the toggle switches, which pop like crazy, and a weird oscillation that appears randomly when toggling around too wildly. The latter may be par for the course with this critter. Truth in advertising!
What does it sound like? If you've heard the demos you know there are a lot of tones in this pedal. It's really bassy and ridiculously loud (unity at 10 o'clock for me). Somewhere in there are standard silicon tones with a lot of booty but of course we're all here for the farty fizzes and quirky velcro skid marks.
True to the spirit of this build, here's a mediocre, incomplete demo that ends abruptly. I couldn't reproduce the oscillation but I did get the weird echo. It's kinda cool but probably a sign the circuit isn't biased correctly. The audio quality is borderline. Really I don't know why I'm posting this. Maybe to cringe at my English.
EDIT: Just noticed i keep calling it a Carcass Fuzz. Sorry, having a senior moment here.
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