# Tone Vendor mkII :/



## TSReppe (Dec 29, 2020)

Hey my dudes!

I’m having issues with a Tone Vendor mkII which goes like this:

1) When engaged it makes fuzz, but there’s a high pitched sinustone. The tone is loud, but is only controlled by the volume control on the pedal. The volume on my guitar does not affect the volume of the sinus.

2) The attack-control ain’t doing alot. There’s def something happening when I turn it, but the amount of fuzz does not seem to change.

There was another thread where someone else had similiar issues, but the things that fixed his seem to be correct in my pedal. All electrolytics are the correct way. The 5u’s are replaced with 4,7u’s. The resistors are all the correct value. The trannies are AC125’s bought from musikding.de. I don’t know the exact hfe, but if the germans are correct q1 and q2 are 90-99 while q3 is 110-120. I’m pretty sure I put them allin the right way.

I tried reflowing all solderjoints, but it did not help. The picture is taken after the reflow.
I’m missing something....


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## Barry (Dec 29, 2020)

Maybe clean the solder side and post another picture, a joint or two look like they could use a touch up, hard to tell with all that flux


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## Coda (Dec 30, 2020)

I built the MKII this passed summer. The fuzz control doesn’t do too much. I would double check the orientation of the transistors. Sometimes they differ from the layout on the pcb...


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## Betty Wont (Dec 30, 2020)

What are you using for your charge pump? Certain ones emit high pitched audio in human range and should be avoided.


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## TSReppe (Dec 30, 2020)

Nice and clean.
transistors are ac125 with the same pinout as the oc81d in the build doc so they are the right way.
Charge pump is the tc1044scpa stated in the build doc, bought from musikding, not randomly on ebay. The empty joints are just the led. It fell out after being bent over and over again. Couldn’t be bothered to fix it right now, gonna watch a movie with the woman 

Hopefully someone sees something I don’t..


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## TSReppe (Dec 30, 2020)

I tried hooking it up to a battery instead, but it didn’t help..


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## TSReppe (Dec 30, 2020)

Coda said:


> I built the MKII this passed summer. The fuzz control doesn’t do too much. I would double check the orientation of the transistors. Sometimes they differ from the layout on the pcb...


Yeah I read through your thread, but unfortunately it didn’t help. The issue with the attack sounds kinda similar to the issues you had, but all my electrolytics are the right way and I’ve used all the right resistors. Suppose it might be a component malfunctioning.. which will be a b****h to go through haha


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## Barry (Dec 30, 2020)

I'd reflow the wiring joints to the board and the pots, neither look to have a good fillit


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## TSReppe (Dec 30, 2020)

Barry said:


> I'd reflow the wiring joints to the board and the pots, neither look to have a good fillit


Okay I did that and something did happen. The sinus is still there, but it does get affected by the attack-pot now. It has also changed character from being a constant drone to sounding more like a fly buzzing around in a window.


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## TSReppe (Jan 1, 2021)

A few days often help in troubleshoots. Tried this one again today. That high pitch disappears when I bring the volume and attack control down to about 75-80%. I wonder it that means it’s just how does trannies are, escpecially since they are a bit higher gain than people usually use in this circuit.


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## Bret608 (Jan 4, 2021)

I've built a couple of MkIIs and they tend to get this oscillation with the fuzz up all the way when the circuit is getting a full nine or more volts. In my case, since I built them on vero, I just went with a slightly "broken in" battery (around 8.5v) and it sounds great. What kind of power supply will you be using with your build? What you could do is wire in a small-value resistor (about 47 ohms) in line with the power supply. Alternately, if you are using something like Pedal Power 2, use the ouputs that have the voltage sag feature--you'd just want to dial it back until the oscillation stops when your fuzz is up all the way.


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## TSReppe (Jan 4, 2021)

Bret608 said:


> I've built a couple of MkIIs and they tend to get this oscillation with the fuzz up all the way when the circuit is getting a full nine or more volts. In my case, since I built them on vero, I just went with a slightly "broken in" battery (around 8.5v) and it sounds great. What kind of power supply will you be using with your build? What you could do is wire in a small-value resistor (about 47 ohms) in line with the power supply. Alternately, if you are using something like Pedal Power 2, use the ouputs that have the voltage sag feature--you'd just want to dial it back until the oscillation stops when your fuzz is up all the way.


Hey man!

Thanx for replying. Your post got me thinking so I did a few measurements. It’s built with the pedalpcb-board so it uses a Tc1044 ic to change the dc from positive to negative and I’ve tested the pedal with a standard boss psa adapter. The output from the ic says 9.17v and the collectors of the trannies goes as follow.
q1 6,49v
q2 0.81v
q3 8,73v

Should I try putting a 47ohm resistor pre or post the ic? Or would it be better to perhaps adjust R2, 4 or 7?


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## Bret608 (Jan 5, 2021)

I would probably put it before the IC, maybe just wired between your DC jack and where 9v goes into the board. Your collector voltages look fine to me. I can tell they're probably not that leaky except for Q3. I would imagine the volume knob cleanup with your guitar is good given the Q2 voltage.


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## TSReppe (Jan 5, 2021)

Bret608 said:


> I would probably put it before the IC, maybe just wired between your DC jack and where 9v goes into the board. Your collector voltages look fine to me. I can tell they're probably not that leaky except for Q3. I would imagine the volume knob cleanup with your guitar is good given the Q2 voltage.



Nah it didn’t help. I’ll try a higher value resistor later.
Actually the cleanup is horrible, but I imagined that just had to do with the high hfe of q1 and q2. I don’t know for sure, but according to musikding they’re between 90 and 99. Last time I looked into measuring hfe I fried the transistor so I thought it safer to buy something I knew and unfortunately they were oit of stock of everything lower.


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## Matopotato (Sep 24, 2021)

Did you resolve this?
I got the MKI though, also from Musikding. All seems fine apart from high base noise, although I was expecting a fuzz to be like that.
But the attack does not do much. It cuts at 15% or lower, but above that little if any change to tone.


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## TSReppe (Sep 24, 2021)

Matopotato said:


> Did you resolve this?
> I got the MKI though, also from Musikding. All seems fine apart from high base noise, although I was expecting a fuzz to be like that.
> But the attack does not do much. It cuts at 15% or lower, but above that little if any change to tone.


No not really. I’ve since built a few fuzz faces that have worked very well, but that vendor mkii never turned out as I thought or hoped. Sold it for cheap to a friend who didn’t mind, he liked it how it was.
Sorry for not being very helpful.


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## Matopotato (Sep 25, 2021)

TSReppe said:


> No not really. I’ve since built a few fuzz faces that have worked very well, but that vendor mkii never turned out as I thought or hoped. Sold it for cheap to a friend who didn’t mind, he liked it how it was.
> Sorry for not being very helpful.


No need to be sorry, I  appreciate your reply nonetheless. Thanks.


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