# Fuzzboy v3



## BurntFingers (Jan 31, 2020)

It's not a pedalpcb board.

It's a vero.

Avert your eyes if you're not into that.




It's a ritual/meathead/colorsound style of thing but with an added tone knob and voltage divider which replicates a dying battery by sending 9v to ground (to a minimum of 2.2v).

The tone is a super basic 0.047uf cap on a pot after the output (the volume in this case) that sends treble to ground. Basically like a tone pot on a guitar. This pedal inherently has a lot of top end so this thickens it up wonderfully.





After 2 days of troubleshooting  and basically rebuilding everything I got it working. Turns out the qs were backwards, even though they were the same way as v1 and v2, but these are from a different supplier so there we go.

There's no gain control but the starve function sort of functions as a pregain. The only caveat there is the volume of course drops off but stick a boost in front and it's super good fun. 8 bit sputter and dying notes, then roll it back up and it's like liquid sludge pouring out of the speakers. Great fun.

I kept it quiet by using a 330uf cap as power filtering. If you can see I did use a cap on series with a resistor across the jacks, which did filter out even more noise but then I realised I hardwired a treble cut across the entire circuit so I removed it. It's no noisier than anything else I've made so all is good. V1 was a can of bees. V3 is as it should be.


----------



## twebb6778 (Jan 31, 2020)

Nice, love the enclosure. Is that hand painted?


----------



## BurntFingers (Jan 31, 2020)

twebb6778 said:


> Nice, love the enclosure. Is that hand painted?



Yeah I hand paint them all. White enclosure from tayda, acrylic paints, then clear enamel over the top.


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (Feb 1, 2020)

The acrylic sticks to the powdercoat ok?  

Would you be so kind as to share the schematic?


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 1, 2020)

Yep acrylic sticks to anything. The clear is enamel, which also sticks to anything.

I don't have a schematic I'm afraid.


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (Feb 1, 2020)

Where did you get the vero layout?


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 1, 2020)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Where did you get the vero layout?



Hmm... that's a good question. I've had the png file on my pc for about 4 years and I don't remember where I got it. It's a Ritual fuzz with some mods based on what I had in the drawer. I know tagboard do a compact one that looks pretty swish.


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (Feb 1, 2020)

It's a one-knob Fuzz-Face with mods?


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 1, 2020)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> It's a one-knob Fuzz-Face with mods?



I mean... yes, in the same way that the meathead/1966/colorsound/ritual/many other fuzz are all "a one-knob Fuzz-Face with mods"


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (Feb 1, 2020)

OK, I found the Black Arts Ritual layout on tagboardeffects.  I see what you did.


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 1, 2020)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> OK, I found the Black Arts Ritual layout on tagboardeffects.  I see what you did.



Yep. There's not much pioneering stuff happening with a one knob fuzz.


----------



## Nostradoomus (Feb 1, 2020)

Great use of the foam from Tayda


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 1, 2020)

Nostradoomus said:


> Great use of the foam from Tayda



Ha yep I needed something and it's just the right height. I stick it down with spray adhesive.

The other smaller bit was for a plan I had to make a sort of grounding rail - run a wire from the DC jack ground to a 1x8 piece of vero and have all the grounds wired to that board instead of jamming up one of the jacks. I've no idea if that'd work or not as it, or if I'd need to connect the other end of the ground rail to something else (like the output jack), just an idea I had.


----------



## Nostradoomus (Feb 1, 2020)

For vero boards where there’s so many ground points, I bought some crimp terminals like this https://www.taydaelectronics.com/crimp-ring-terminal-size-m4-awg-22-16.html

Soldered all my grounds to that and fastened it with the screw to the enclosure.


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 1, 2020)

Nostradoomus said:


> For vero boards where there’s so many ground points, I bought some crimp terminals like this https://www.taydaelectronics.com/crimp-ring-terminal-size-m4-awg-22-16.html
> 
> Soldered all my grounds to that and fastened it with the screw to the enclosure.



Logical.

For my ground rail idea, would I need to ground that to anything from the other end? If so, could I use the output jack ground?

Then all the various ground wires go to the vero. It all seems a little too easy...


----------



## Barry (Feb 1, 2020)

Love the graphics, build looks good!


----------



## Nostradoomus (Feb 1, 2020)

BurntFingers said:


> Logical.
> 
> For my ground rail idea, would I need to ground that to anything from the other end? If so, could I use the output jack ground?
> 
> Then all the various ground wires go to the vero. It all seems a little too easy...



Yeah I still go from dc to output jack to the crimp terminal (just one run of bare 20awg wire, not 2 pieces on each) Don’t know if it’s necessary but it works. I only use the terminal if I have lots of pot lugs to ground, it can be far too messy otherwise.


----------



## Dirty_Boogie (Feb 2, 2020)

I've found that with most veros, if you trace along from the marked ground (on the vero layout) you'll typically find 2 or 3 more points on other strips where the ground also connects.  I then use those points for additional ground wires.  When I want a challenge, I build vero. When I want neat and works first time, I build PedalPCB. ?


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 2, 2020)

Dirty_Boogie said:


> I've found that with most veros, if you trace along from the marked ground (on the vero layout) you'll typically find 2 or 3 more points on other strips where the ground also connects.  I then use those points for additional ground wires.  When I want a challenge, I build vero. When I want neat and works first time, I build PedalPCB. ?



Yep I was aware of that, I'm just thinking ahead and wondering about this ground rail idea. With solid wire you can get some pretty neat routing since it stays in shape reasonably well and I could hide the wires to some degree. In my head it looks great. 

I'm not sure about you but I find Vero a lot more satisfying to build from. As good as the PCBs are it's vaguely impersonal and kinda painting by numbers whereas vero is all your own work, planning, and graft. Although a lot more difficult, it's more creatively inspiring (for me).


----------



## Dirty_Boogie (Feb 2, 2020)

BurntFingers said:


> Yep I was aware of that, I'm just thinking ahead and wondering about this ground rail idea. With solid wire you can get some pretty neat routing since it stays in shape reasonably well and I could hide the wires to some degree. In my head it looks great.
> 
> I'm not sure about you but I find Vero a lot more satisfying to build from. As good as the PCBs are it's vaguely impersonal and kinda painting by numbers whereas vero is all your own work, planning, and graft. Although a lot more difficult, it's more creatively inspiring (for me).


100% agree.  When I was starting out with building pedals, PCB's at least gave me a fighting chance of having a working pedal. Once my skills improved - soldering, wiring/layout and troubleshooting - I began to realize that pretty much every issue was solvable. I primarily use PedalPCB boards when I'm building for others. Most of the time I'm now building vero, or occasionally perfboard, for simple circuits like Fuzzface, Benders or boosts. Also, when I get the urge, I want to start building right away, and not wait for the order to be delivered.  ?


----------



## BurntFingers (Feb 2, 2020)

Dirty_Boogie said:


> 100% agree.  When I was starting out with building pedals, PCB's at least gave me a fighting chance of having a working pedal. Once my skills improved - soldering, wiring/layout and troubleshooting - I began to realize that pretty much every issue was solvable. I primarily use PedalPCB boards when I'm building for others. Most of the time I'm now building vero, or occasionally perfboard, for simple circuits like Fuzzface, Benders or boosts. Also, when I get the urge, I want to start building right away, and not wait for the order to be delivered.  ?



For sure. It's very difficult to make a Vero board look anywhere near as neat as with a nice symmetrical pedalpcb board. I had a discussion with another dude about how the internal appearance of a pedal makes it easier to sell (if you're doing so) and the pedalpcb boards really help in that regard.


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (Feb 2, 2020)

BurntFingers said:


> the internal appearance of a pedal makes it easier to sell (if you're doing so) and the pedalpcb boards really help in that regard.



Try gooping it!


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (Feb 2, 2020)

I like doing both, for me each has their place.  When I want the exact pedal, or something close to it, a PCB is the quickest way to get there.  When I want to color outside the lines, Vero is the way to go.  I definitely take advantage of the many places to pick up ground on a Vero board.  I've done a few Veros with board-mounted pots.  A bit more challenging to lay out, and the pots need to be mechanically restrained so they don't rip up the traces if they get stressed.  It does result in a cleaner pedal.


----------

