jessenator
Well-known member
Here it is: The Sardine Tin
I've been working on this one for a while now. In fact it's the first (good) schematic I attempted to put into a PCB when I was first learning Eagle last year. This is a Univox Super-Fuzz based-on-a true-story adaptation built to fit into a 1590B enclosure, which I haven't seen out there (but maybe I'm not looking hard enough). Nevertheless, it's a rather tight build, but not impossible to manage.
The first rev board was ...it had no thought put into it other than "this goes here, that goes there, ehhh, I can has board?"
It was not a good fit, and only two of the original 4 went into a 1590A, the others were 1590N1/125B jobs.
This revision board is much tighter and much easier to fit into a 1590B. It can be tricky if you're socketing the transistors, but again, not impossible.
I was given the name by the bloke to whom this exact pedal will go. Named in honor of the late MCA of the Beastie Boys. He rocked his single-pickup J Bass with frequent use of the Super-Fuzz, and the sound is spot on! Mixed with a bit of Glass Hole (Mu-Tron Phasor II), it's right there with the studio recording of Gratitude. I'm very pleased with how this one came out, both with the board and the enclosure design.
Like the name, the design is an homage to MCA's lyric in Hello Nasty's Body Movin' "packed like sardines in a tin" —This album was an instant classic, and has had regular rotation in the music collection since I bought it in 1999.
This is a Tayda orange sand enclosure with double-white print, and a matte finish. The matte is nice for instances like this where you want brightness, but not a chrome sheen. It also complements the sand texture, which is more matte than gloss.
I can't find my flash diffusers
so forgive the hard shadows on the photos.
As far as the guts, it's been transplanted twice, so the wires might be a tad hangdog… I used bipolar caps and NOS 1N34As. I also wanted to follow some docs I've seen out there as far as the transistors were concerned. I actually have copious amounts of NPNs now, all measured and cataloged (I have a problem…), and was able to match everything for this set. I ditched the 5088s I was using in my first board builds and opted for 3904s and 3903s for this build.
For the top three gain NPNs, I have ~170, for the matching pair I have ~120, and the low lone one I have 84 (or thereabouts).
I should note that I've been measuring them all with my Poor Man's Peak™ MK-168 which measures at (as far as I measured via collector current) 6mA vs the Peak Atlas' 2.5mA, so I've got about 10–20% difference in whatever hFE values a Peak owner would get. I have another Sardine Tin in the hole which will have slightly lower numbers than these, but I'll have to do a better side-by-side test than what I did last night.
thumbnail test…
I've been working on this one for a while now. In fact it's the first (good) schematic I attempted to put into a PCB when I was first learning Eagle last year. This is a Univox Super-Fuzz based-on-a true-story adaptation built to fit into a 1590B enclosure, which I haven't seen out there (but maybe I'm not looking hard enough). Nevertheless, it's a rather tight build, but not impossible to manage.
The first rev board was ...it had no thought put into it other than "this goes here, that goes there, ehhh, I can has board?"
It was not a good fit, and only two of the original 4 went into a 1590A, the others were 1590N1/125B jobs.
This revision board is much tighter and much easier to fit into a 1590B. It can be tricky if you're socketing the transistors, but again, not impossible.
I was given the name by the bloke to whom this exact pedal will go. Named in honor of the late MCA of the Beastie Boys. He rocked his single-pickup J Bass with frequent use of the Super-Fuzz, and the sound is spot on! Mixed with a bit of Glass Hole (Mu-Tron Phasor II), it's right there with the studio recording of Gratitude. I'm very pleased with how this one came out, both with the board and the enclosure design.
Like the name, the design is an homage to MCA's lyric in Hello Nasty's Body Movin' "packed like sardines in a tin" —This album was an instant classic, and has had regular rotation in the music collection since I bought it in 1999.
This is a Tayda orange sand enclosure with double-white print, and a matte finish. The matte is nice for instances like this where you want brightness, but not a chrome sheen. It also complements the sand texture, which is more matte than gloss.
I can't find my flash diffusers
so forgive the hard shadows on the photos.As far as the guts, it's been transplanted twice, so the wires might be a tad hangdog… I used bipolar caps and NOS 1N34As. I also wanted to follow some docs I've seen out there as far as the transistors were concerned. I actually have copious amounts of NPNs now, all measured and cataloged (I have a problem…), and was able to match everything for this set. I ditched the 5088s I was using in my first board builds and opted for 3904s and 3903s for this build.
For the top three gain NPNs, I have ~170, for the matching pair I have ~120, and the low lone one I have 84 (or thereabouts).
I should note that I've been measuring them all with my Poor Man's Peak™ MK-168 which measures at (as far as I measured via collector current) 6mA vs the Peak Atlas' 2.5mA, so I've got about 10–20% difference in whatever hFE values a Peak owner would get. I have another Sardine Tin in the hole which will have slightly lower numbers than these, but I'll have to do a better side-by-side test than what I did last night.
thumbnail test…
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