BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

thank you VERY much to C Mills, who was in the holiday spirit and sent me a folk fuzz PCB and some parts, and for the new year I will be building my very own BJF designed folk fuzz!

I knew I would be getting the soldering iron out eventually.

now, if i could only find some decent transistor sockets. My friend George tells me the best thing to do is to use TWO sockets, stacked on top of each other, as the wear and tear on the socket from putting transistors in and out will wear out the contacts, and that he had nothign but problems with the fuzz he built with sockets.

Did any of you use sockets, or did you "commit" to some transistors and solder them in?

Glad it made it down there!

I just went for it without sockets. Trying to fit them in on the board wasn't working out for me. I was going to try taking the sockets out of the plastic so it was just a little metal stand, but I figured that was asking for trouble and would end up making a connection that shouldn't be there. Maybe a piece of heat shrink tubing around it would've worked.

mills wrote:Glad it made it down there!

I just went for it without sockets. Trying to fit them in on the board wasn't working out for me. I was going to try taking the sockets out of the plastic so it was just a little metal stand, but I figured that was asking for trouble and would end up making a connection that shouldn't be there. Maybe a piece of heat shrink tubing around it would've worked.

thank you again!

i'm just gonna solder those transistors in. need to go pick up a decent heat sink so i do not damage them. i can hear my father's voice in my head even before i pick up the soldering iron

this came along at a very good time, and i hope this fuzz can be a complement to the SWF that resides on my board. i may do some further tonal tweaking as i go along. i am tempted to breadboard this circuit first and try it with various tweaks before i solder it all together

once again, thank you!

I would avoid sockets with this build. The board is pretty dense and sockets just aren't going to fit without some risk of shorting. If you're careful you could make it work but if you're building the silicon version you would be fine with just soldering in the transistors that come with the kit. BE SURE TO CHECK THE PINOUT OF THE TRANSISTORS AS THE BOARD SCREEN MIGHT NOT BE ACCURATE FOR THE PARTS YOU HAVE.

Corksniffer wrote:I would avoid sockets with this build. The board is pretty dense and sockets just aren't going to fit without some risk of shorting. If you're careful you could make it work but if you're building the silicon version you would be fine with just soldering in the transistors that come with the kit. BE SURE TO CHECK THE PINOUT OF THE TRANSISTORS AS THE BOARD SCREEN MIGHT NOT BE ACCURATE FOR THE PARTS YOU HAVE.

you are 100% correct -- i am gonna breadboard it first, test out various transistors, then when i settle on the ones i like, solder them in (using a heatsink, of course)

you shouldn't need to use a heatsink if you're using silicon transistors. They are pretty heat resistant as long as you're not going nuts with it. I rarely even use a heatsink while soldering germaniums because with practice it's not hard to get it soldered in without cooking it.

soulsonic wrote:you shouldn't need to use a heatsink if you're using silicon transistors. They are pretty heat resistant as long as you're not going nuts with it. I rarely even use a heatsink while soldering germaniums because with practice it's not hard to get it soldered in without cooking it.

you are correct, but i can still hear my Dad in my head when i am soldering

If anyone has a board for sale I´d love to build one!