Retro Channel - The Fuzz

marshmellow · Post by **marshmellow** » 23 Jul 2011, 15:05

Had a bored, rainy afternoon yesterday.
Attached is a pcb layout, I used the revised cap values.
Should fit a B-type enclosure nicely with pcb mounted pots.

Desdog · Post by **Desdog** » 02 Sep 2011, 21:25

marshmellow wrote:Had a bored, rainy afternoon yesterday.
Attached is a pcb layout, I used the revised cap values.
Should fit a B-type enclosure nicely with pcb mounted pots.

Great, business as usual!!

roseblood11 · Post by **roseblood11** » 02 Sep 2011, 22:05

based on marshmellows schematic

btw: it's interesting that ibodog contributed a lot to this thread. Conspiracy...

Post by **modman** » 02 Sep 2011, 23:37

I'm looking into where the rest of the thread went.... I honestly don't know

tube-exorcist · Post by **tube-exorcist** » 03 Sep 2011, 00:27

Unfortunately the picture of the chinese Recto-Chanel clone has been lost. Here it is again:

GuitarlCarl · Post by **GuitarlCarl** » 03 Sep 2011, 04:04

Ok so I'm guessing all the tranny's in an array have equal hfe's... So, is D1 in the schematic fooling the tranny into thinking it has a lower hfe, or acting like a lower hfe transistor? I think the first transistor in a tonebender is lower hfe too correct?

iq01221 · Post by **iq01221** » 03 Sep 2011, 06:28

tube-exorcist wrote:Unfortunately the picture of the chinese Recto-Chanel clone has been lost. Here it is again:

Jajajajajajajaja!!!!!!!!!! Now with rat urin smell!!!

juanro · Post by **juanro** » 03 Sep 2011, 10:41

GuitarlCarl wrote:Ok so I'm guessing all the tranny's in an array have equal hfe's... So, is D1 in the schematic fooling the tranny into thinking it has a lower hfe, or acting like a lower hfe transistor? I think the first transistor in a tonebender is lower hfe too correct?

Seems to me that D1 is in the opostite direction of the PN junction of the first transistor... is there either as an input protection (?) or to clip negative peaks of input signal and avoid the base of the first transistor to drift too negative (??)
Regards,

Juanro

juanro · Post by **juanro** » 23 Sep 2011, 00:14

Hey,

Someone asked for our own artwork, here's mine:

Juanro

Tonetweaker · Post by **Tonetweaker** » 23 Sep 2011, 02:51

juanro wrote:Hey,

Someone asked for our own artwork, here's mine:

IMG_9065.jpg
Juanro

Couldn't add a thanks (error message)... so I'll do it this way:

THANKS!

Cheers...
Steve

DrNomis · Post by **DrNomis** » 23 Sep 2011, 03:04

juanro wrote:Hey,

Someone asked for our own artwork, here's mine:

IMG_9065.jpg
Juanro

I still reckon that Q1 and Q5 are some kind of voltage divider biasing system for Q2, though the need for it to be as complex as it is sure is a mystery, you could probably achieve the same effect by substituting plain vanilla 1N4148 Si diodes for Q1 and Q5, well I'm going to try breadboarding the circuit when I have some spare time, and I'm going to do some analysis of the circuit and try and see if I can work out exactly how it works, hope you don't mind juanro....

juanro · Post by **juanro** » 23 Sep 2011, 03:09

I don't mind at all, au contraire, but sure know someone that will... hehe.

Juanro

DrNomis · Post by **DrNomis** » 23 Sep 2011, 03:33

juanro wrote:I don't mind at all, au contraire, but sure know someone that will... hehe.

Juanro

Lol...I can only guess....

I'll make sure I post my findings in this thread for the benefit of all FSB members then...cheers....

mganzer · Post by **mganzer** » 06 Oct 2011, 15:11

ca3086 subs ca3046?

juanro · Post by **juanro** » 06 Oct 2011, 16:50

Datasheets looks very similar:

CA3046: http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn341.pdf
CA3086: http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn483.pdf

Same pinout, Hfe, Vbe, and pretty much the same parameters in general. Take a look (a more detailed one than I did) to see if you can spot some difference.

Regards,
Juanro

mganzer · Post by **mganzer** » 06 Oct 2011, 17:14

Yep Juanro, is pretty similar with slight differences...
i guess a try this one (dificulties to encounter 3046 in Brazil).
thank you for help!

mictester · Post by **mictester** » 07 Oct 2011, 11:34

mganzer wrote:Yep Juanro, is pretty similar with slight differences...
i guess a try this one (dificulties to encounter 3046 in Brazil).
thank you for help!

The 3086 has higher Ft transistors. This is only really significant when you get to VHF, so you really don't need to worry at audio frequencies. I used to find that the hfe of the transistors in the 3086 was slightly lower than in the 3046, but only by a very small amount.

DrNomis · Post by **DrNomis** » 07 Oct 2011, 11:53

I've got ten LM3046N ICs in front of me sitting in some black conductive antistatic foam as I type this....

mganzer · Post by **mganzer** » 07 Oct 2011, 18:29

Thank you guys mictest and juanro for the great help and very nice job on this little nice box of love and dirt fuzz... I hope it sounds close to the Tone Bender mkII it's really a wonder (with three selected oc75) whose only problem I see is the ground positive ... I ride this more as a matter of saving tbmk2 of continuous use ...

DrNomis wrote:I've got ten LM3046N ICs in front of me sitting in some black conductive antistatic foam as I type this....

Put it in a box and rock it! yeahh

Steven_M · Post by **Steven_M** » 07 Oct 2011, 18:41

Excuse the tuning and playing.

Guitar is a tele, amp is a Pro Junior.

This fuzz is huge! you need to build it. I can't comment on how close it sounds to an original, either tonebender or Retro Channel, but it sounds good!

Retro Channel - The Fuzz [traced]