I've had a transistor oriented incorrectly in my Pepper Spray for about a year!

[Bret608]

Hi all,

In the process of debugging my Wolfshirt, I realized that, while I did in fact know where the emitter is on a 2n3565, I was clueless as to how to reconcile that with the pinout on more common transistor packages. Once I fixed the Foxx, I had an "aha" moment and realized I needed to check how I oriented the Pepper Spray's 2n3565 against the schematic. Sure enough, it was wrong. I always thought I might have a problem as it seemed a little soft in the gain and "craziness" department, but since I was able to get above unity gain on volume, I chalked it up to a) the difference between the Albini specs and the stock and b) low-ish output pickups on my guitar. I even helped out on a Tech Help thread where someone was having the same problem! I just didn't realize the extent to which this circuit would still sort of work with a transistor flipped the wrong way.

Anyway, after flipping it, the difference is like night and day! Way louder and just ripping fuzz-drive. I feel like I learned a lot about transistor pinout and schematic reading this weekend. I hope this cautionary tale is even remotely useful to someone.

By the way, this does sound similar to the sounds on the Albini videos with my setup. There's a part at the beginning before he goes into that odd riff he plays--he's just hitting some chords, A minor and the like. Mine sounds darn close. The 1n914s I put for the other clipping option sounds really brutal and crunchy as well.

[Liustucru]

Had the same problem few weeks ago.

The PepperSpray was one of my first build. I didn't realize the pinout orientation of the 2N3565 was wrong unitl recently. So I thought it was not my kind of fuzz and put it aside. Low volume, no radiophonic feedback. I only heard about the Harmonic Percolator in Albini's youtube videos and since I built it with stock specs, I thought it would sound better with Albini's specs.

Months later, I flipped it and finally got the radiophonic feedback !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but with lots of noise 
I planned to rewire it with shielded wire.

I will have to update my build report when it will be rewired !!!

[Scruffie]

I once built a fuzz factory years ago that had two silicon PNPs in it, worked absolutely fine for near enough a year then one day dropped in volume, opened it and noticed the mistake, unsoldered and flipped them, back to normal! 

[Bret608]

Had the same problem few weeks ago.

The PepperSpray was one of my first build. I didn't realize the pinout orientation of the 2N3565 was wrong unitl recently. So I thought it was not my kind of fuzz and put it aside. Low volume, no radiophonic feedback. I only heard about the Harmonic Percolator in Albini's youtube videos and since I built it with stock specs, I thought it would sound better with Albini's specs.

Months later, I flipped it and finally got the radiophonic feedback !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but with lots of noise 
I planned to rewire it with shielded wire.

I will have to update my build report when it will be rewired !!!

I forgot to mention, the Pepper Spray was actually my first build!    I get the feedback easily too now. Not for long though--it was so loud my daughters ran out of the room! I had to turn the volume down to aobut 2 o'clock to meke it reasonable.

Thanks for sharing, guys. Nice to know I'm not the only one with these experiences.