Sunflower Fuzz

[swelchy]

Built a Sunflower tonight and dedicated this one @MichaelW ... He gave me a good little batch of transistors to sort through and I finally got around to picking some for a build. My first crack at it I failed and couldn't figure what was wrong so I got another pcb to try... I went with no labels because that's how he rolls. Thanks man this one sounds really thick and even gates a bit. No idea how to really test HFE other than the cheap transistor tester but these came in around 85 for Q1 and 140 for Q2 on the cheap tester....

 

[MichaelW]

That's how I sort and tested them to begin with, with a CCT as Chuck calls them, Cheap Chinese Tester.
One of these days I'm going to invest in a Peak but for now it's close enough for govmint woik.
Absolutely LOVE the graphics!

 

[MichaelW]

Sunflower is actually on my list to build. I've already built the SandSpur (BC108 version) but my Ge Purist friend @szukalski recommended the Sunflower hahah....

Since building the Grover drive I've been intrigued with stacking a fuzz into a Zen drive or a TS. You might want to give that a try. Tip, keep the fuzz volume low-ish and the drive pedal higher. Some great "Dover-ish" sounds with more control than the Grover.

 

[szukalski]

The sunflower is nice and forgiving as far as gain and leakage is concerned. Set the external bias to 50% and bias internal to 4.5V on Q2. Then it’s just a matter of finding a pair of transistors which like each other. I found American in Q1 (2N130x) and Russian in Q2 worked well.

 

[andare]

Built a Sunflower tonight and dedicated this one @MichaelW ... He gave me a good little batch of transistors to sort through and I finally got around to picking some for a build. My first crack at it I failed and couldn't figure what was wrong so I got another pcb to try... I went with no labels because that's how he rolls. Thanks man this one sounds really thick and even gates a bit. No idea how to really test HFE other than the cheap transistor tester but these came in around 85 for Q1 and 140 for Q2 on the cheap tester....
View attachment 34311View attachment 34312

No sockets? Madlad!
And a 0 ohm resistor on the footswitch!

My Sunflower was my first PedalPCB build and I messed up the wiring royally. It recently stopped working and has been used to practice desoldering. The transistors went back into the stash and the enclosure now houses a Si Fuzzrite.

I remember being completely underwhelmed by the tone. When I finally bought a TC1 I realized why: the transistors were not in the right gain buckets but much lower. That's when I decided not to trust vendors and just source, test and match my own transistors.

 

[swelchy]

No sockets? Madlad!
And a 0 ohm resistor on the footswitch!

My Sunflower was my first PedalPCB build and I messed up the wiring royally. It recently stopped working and has been used to practice desoldering. The transistors went back into the stash and the enclosure now houses a Si Fuzzrite.

I remember being completely underwhelmed by the tone. When I finally bought a TC1 I realized why: the transistors were not in the right gain buckets but much lower. That's when I decided not to trust vendors and just source, test and match my own transistors.

They are socketed… Just can’t see from the angle

 

[Big Monk]

That's how I sort and tested them to begin with, with a CCT as Chuck calls them, Cheap Chinese Tester.
One of these days I'm going to invest in a Peak but for now it's close enough for govmint woik.
Absolutely LOVE the graphics!

For low leakage transistors, those CCTs are where it’s at.

Since I only use low leakage transistors, I’ve never had the need to upgrade.