Sziklai fail - what is this?

[enrosenzweig]

I'm playing around with a fuzz circuit and attempted to put together a Sziklai pair. I'm getting signal and it's fuzzy. However, I looked down at the breadboard today and realized that what I have hooked up is not at all what I intended, nor does it match my schematic. It's more than just upside down, it's strange. Is it something else?



Here's the breadboard. There's an additional 18k between B of NPN and E of PNP in the pseudo-Sziklai that I haven't added to the schematic yet.

 

[Feral Feline]

I'm playing around with a fuzz circuit and attempted to put together a Szilkai pair. I'm getting signal and it's fuzzy. However, I looked down at the breadboard today and realized that what I have hooked up is not at all what I intended, nor does it match my schematic. It's more than just upside down, it's strange. Is it something else?

View attachment 44132

Here's the breadboard. There's an additional 18k between B of NPN and E of PNP in the pseudo-Szilkai that I haven't added to the schematic yet.
View attachment 44133

I see your problem, it's a bit lysdexic: you've mixed up the "K" and the "L".

Named after its inventor, George C Sziklai, so not "S z i l k a i", but rather "S z i k l a i".


Dyslexic kidding aside — I'm not just being a pedantic putz — correct spelling will enable others in future find this thread when searching for help with their own Sziklai-pair problems.

I'm interested in Sziklai pairs, but I'm not great at following breadboard flow unless it's my own and even then, if I leave it too long and come back to my breadboard, I'm lost and have to suss it out all over again. So...

Do you have a full schematic to share?
More pics of the breadboard ins/outs, too, please.

 

[enrosenzweig]

Well, this is an even bigger mess than I thought!

I've changed the spelling, still sounds the same though. Hopefully, I'll have time later today to plug away and post more info. Maybe I should move this to the Troubleshooting forum...

 

[Feral Feline]

I thought for sure the "kl" would fix it...

Looking forward to your update.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

I tried following along, but I too am bad at deciphering the breadboards of others— instead I’m just hungry now. I think you might accidentally have made a souvlaki pair instead.

 

[enrosenzweig]

Well...I managed to get the PNP tranny hot to the touch a few times and ended up with no sound. I didn't fry it though, it still test fine. I couldn't figure out what was going wrong. I pulled out the setup I had and did it over again. This time it seems to be an actually Szilkai pair (I had to scroll up to check my spelling...) and it sounds...bad.

So, for now I haven't cooked anything worth eating, be it souvlaki or sziklai.

I'll hopefully have time to return to this over the weekend and will take notes.