Stripboard Screwdriver

[JakeFuzz]

  The holy grail of overdrives! Seriously this thing sounds incredible, my new favorite. It is just different in a very good way. Instead of getting full out crunchy when you dig in it get's fuzzy, but not that mushy fuzzy, a good defined, thick fuzz. Build this pedal!



Stripboard always comes out messier for some reason.

[sprayfe]

Trying to wait for the pcb layout! Link me! Beautiful job!

[irmcdermott]

So do you recommend making the two internal trims external?

[JakeFuzz]

Trying to wait for the pcb layout! Link me! Beautiful job!

Gracias! The finish is anodized blue from PPP, and sweet aluminum knobs from SB.


http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1368

So do you recommend making the two internal trims external?

Definitely external. The brilliance is like having a presence control and the pre-gain adds more or less gain (and it also seems like some bottom end/midrange). Way too useful to have on the inside.

[redbean]

COOL!! I was planning on using that color scheme (blue anodized finish from PPP + silver knobs), but now I'll have to do something slightly different. 

[Haberdasher]

niiiiice.  what are the transistors and where did you pick them up?

[JakeFuzz]

niiiiice.  what are the transistors and where did you pick them up?

Transistors are AC127, BC109c and BS170. I bought the AC127 from PPP and the other two from small bear.

COOL!! I was planning on using that color scheme (blue anodized finish from PPP + silver knobs), but now I'll have to do something slightly different. 

Great minds think alike   . I was going to go for the anodized red, I like to keep it looking a little like the original. Fitting 5 knobs was a PITA, I had to grind out the cast posts to make the upper two corner pots fit.


On another note, I am testing it against the Fulltone Catalyst right now, the SD is much, much smoother and sounds good at every setting!

[JeffdaMaori]

Very well done, excellent!
I'm also keen as to see the new pcb for it dropping here hopefully soon...


Cheers

Andy

[jstbrowsin]

nice job . . . do you have any clips please?

[JakeFuzz]

nice job . . . do you have any clips please?

I wish man, the only camera I have access to at the moment is my phone and the sound quality is unacceptable. I will post when can get a better video recorded. For now though it sounds very much like all the demos I have heard, maybe slightly lower gain.   

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

Looks great man! I look forward to hearing some clips too.

[JakeFuzz]

Clips for this in a few weeks.

After playing with this for the last month or so here are some of the things I noticed. There is an inherent crackliness to the decay of the notes, this is my only gripe with this effect and I did a couple things to try and dial it out. I added trimpots to up the biasing voltage and swapped Q2 and Q3 quite a bit. I couldn't manage to get rid of it.

I settled on a BC108 for Q2 (hfe ~ 550) and an AC176 for Q3 ( hfe ~ 100, IL ~ 800uA), the higher gain and high leakage AC176 has much more bite and the fizzle is a little less noticeable. I tried an OC140 and an AC127 and this was the best sounding. I got these trannys from doctor tweek, so if you buy the AC176 don't expect Fuzz Face material, all were high leakage.

And probably my favorite thing about the screwdriver, when you run this into a Timmy you get the best high gain solo tone i have ever heard, think Eric Johnson smoothness with perfect note clarity.

[dwstanford]

I really want to build one of these.  Did you use the ibodog2 layout om fsb?  If so, did you make any modifications? 

[JakeFuzz]

Yeah Just the straight ibodog layout, it is nice and compact at only 20 holes wide. The only modification I made was changing the drive pot to a reverse taper, I do it to all my fuzz face clones; makes the gain a million times more usable. The small feedback caps are silver mica and may have been rounded to the nearest available value (I cant remember at the moment). I added trims for the Q2 and Q3 bias but ended up leaving everything at the stock values. Sounds amazing but the fizzle is really starting to bug me. 

[night-B]

Is that silver mica caps I can see on your board?