Fake transistor?
- Thread starter jdduffield
- Start date
kristopher
Well-known member
How does it sound? Have you tried it out in anything ?
Maybe it’s just a bad cut, and all the goodness inside is still good.
Maybe it’s just a bad cut, and all the goodness inside is still good.
jdduffield
Member
At the time I posted I hadn’t finished the circuit yet. But I’ve finished it now and it works but doesn’t sound as good as the other one I built with the exact same schematic. So, I assume it is the transistor or the cap. It doesn’t sound “bad”, just a little different. A little darker.
Sturdag Lagernathy
Well-known member
Looks like flash from the mold. There are literally trillions of 2n3904's in the world, no reason to fake 'em. The tolerance on capacitors is much wider than most transistors so I'd check the capacitor
Stickman393
Well-known member
Nah. These things are mass produced and still currently produced.
Fake stuff tends to be out of production components, expensive components, and are generally just re-badged commonly produced components.
That means that fakes are generally printed on top of components *like* the 2N3904. What you've got there is just a normal 2n3904 that wasn't thrown out with QA.
Fake stuff tends to be out of production components, expensive components, and are generally just re-badged commonly produced components.
That means that fakes are generally printed on top of components *like* the 2N3904. What you've got there is just a normal 2n3904 that wasn't thrown out with QA.
jdduffield
Member
I changed the cap and it did have a slight affect on the tone (in a good way), but didn’t quite bring the pedal to sounding like the other one. It is close though, and acceptable. I just would like to figure out how to get it closer. Maybe tomorrow I’ll measure hFE values and get some voltage readings. My guess is something is different between the tolerances or gains somewhere. Looks like the 2N3904 hFE readings hover around 380ish. I even swapped the 2N3904 out for a 2N2222, which had an much lower hFE, and found it was closer to what I wanted (only the sound of the breakup wasn’t as good when the drive is cranked). I even tried a BC108 with an even lower hFE but it started getting too “fuzzy” when driven. I’ll try to mess with it tomorrow some more. It is a spin off of the Electra circuit with few parts, so each one makes quite a difference.
