Solar Flare

[mjg]

This is a 'Solar Flare' board from Nucleon FX.  Thanks again to Rockhorst for the build of the year prize last year.  It's taken me this long to get through them all!

The circuit is based on the Keeley Fuzz Head.  I've used an AC128K for the germanium transistor, and for the diodes I went with 1n4148, 1n270, and a cheeky D9K hanging off the side of the board. 



The enclosure was an old tobacco tin.  The previous owner died from lung cancer.  Don't smoke, kids.  Public service announcement done.   Anyway, this is a much better use for the tin.





It sounds... fuzzy.  I'm not sure that I'm a fuzz connoisseur, so probably not the best person to judge this one.

I used a waterslide print to do the labels on the top... but after 60 seconds under the water, the decal still didn't budge.  At this point I realised that I'd grabbed the vinyl sticker paper, not the decal paper.  Don't put sticker paper under water.  It doesn't work. 

[EBK]

Very nice!

[Rockhorst]

1) It also took me a long time to send you all the PCBs, so let's share that responsibility
2) That looks wicked cool and it's cool to see it at such a small footprint. Has a bit of that Fuzz Face mini vibe too.
3) In my experience, this circuit shouldn't produce the fuzziest of fuzz tones. It can be nice and creamy but also work well as a responsive OD/Distortion with the diodes out of the circuit. Does it do that? Otherwise maybe tweak the bias a bit. I found it to be less 'over the top' than a typical Fuzz Face.

[Bret608]

Cool build and interesting choice of enclosure! I've built a couple of Fuzz Head clones (including an earlier Solar Flare iteration) and never realized you could use PNP transistors in the circuit. Anyway, I've always found this more on the OD/distortion side of things as well. What's the range of bias you get on the collector of your AC128? Higher collector voltages (7 volts and up) will clean it up a bit and take it more toward Rangemaster territory. I found something around 5.8 volts was the best balance between more sustain/fuzz and that RM "bark" for lack of a better word.

[mjg]

Thanks, I'll try the bias again.  I did fiddle with it on the bench, but probably need to give it another go now that everything is finished. 

Hmm...I might need to drill a hole in the bottom of the tin to adjust the bias though, it is a bugger to get the board in and out of that tin! 

EDIT:  I've fiddled with the bias, and I can set it anywhere from 0.1v to about 2.7v.  I guess that differs from the 7v you mentioned because of the changes to make this a PNP circuit.  I had it set on 2.2v to start with, I'm finding something like 1.6v is more to my taste.  I'll give it some time, it will probably grow on me. 

[Rockhorst]

From 7V subtract 9V (PNP) and then flip the sign (neg ground) Check out some demos of the fuzz head to get an idea of the sounds to expect.