Powersound Overdriver

[Treeolyfe]

Versatile, loud, cutting if need be, love it.

 

[Fuzzonaut]

Ohhh, nice! Love the caps!

And where did you get that enclosure?

 

[Nostradoomus]

https://www.gapco.co.uk/vintage-pedal-enclosure.html ? Probably.

Very cool build!

 

[Barry]

Looks great

 

[Treeolyfe]

Thanks for kind words. Not sure about product rules here, but gapco enclosures can be found on Reverb.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Nice build. Great color. What's with the big caps? Is that a thing now? You've inspired me to build a pedal around this muh-fuh.
BTW, C100 doesn't do anything.

 

[Rectie]

Old thread, I know, but any input on what transistors on this version of the overdriver? I found an abandoned project, and it doesn't do much until pretty close to max gain. I'm not finding any archived build docs for this version, so I'm lobbing this longshot...

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Both versions call for BC109. BC109 comes in 3 HFE grades: A, B & C. Ungraded parts could be any HFE, but are probably in the bottom 2 tiers. Any high-gain, low-noise NPN such as MPSA18, 2N5088/5089, BC549C would all be good subs. Mind the pinout if you sub parts. The older version has a charge pump that doubles the rail voltage for more headroom. When you say "doesn't do much" I assume you mean doesn't make distortion. If you want this to play dirty, then ditching the charge pump might get you there.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Change the gain pot to C1k

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

That will increase the minimum gain and make for a smoother sweep. Which is good if you're not using the bottom end of the GAIN knob.

It will not increase the maximum gain.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Yep, I always do it to these. The gain is bunched up at the end with B10k (as the poster above was saying). It's just all around better.