# Sunflower Fuzz



## chongmagic (Apr 2, 2019)

I found some NOS NKT275s to put in and they sound pretty good. I will have to put up a sound demo when I can.









						New item by Jonathan Freeman
					






					photos.app.goo.gl
				












						New item by Jonathan Freeman
					






					photos.app.goo.gl


----------



## Jbanks (Apr 7, 2019)

I built a Sunflower a month or so ago and couldn’t get the level/gain to be high enough. Messed up the PCB taking out a transistor and started all over last night...

Long story short, the sound issue is still the same-bypass is fine, when turned on it is very quiet and no fuzz. No luck turning the clean and bias. 

I can’t locate NKT275 germanium and tried silicon and another matched pair or Ge that didn’t work. Will this not work even close without the NKT275’s? I build a fair amount of pedals a month and something this simple is really puzzling me. 

Any help would be welcome!


----------



## chongmagic (Apr 7, 2019)

You don't need NKT-275s they are near impossible to find and most are duds or fake. You can use some 2SB171s those should work too.


----------



## Jbanks (Apr 7, 2019)

chongmagic said:


> You don't need NKT-275s they are near impossible to find and most are duds or fake. You can use some 2SB171s those should work too.




Thanks,

I’ll give those a try and see if it helps the level/gain issues.


----------



## chongmagic (Apr 7, 2019)

You can probably get a matched pair off Smallbear


----------



## Jbanks (Apr 7, 2019)

Ok. And is there a certain HFE range they should be? If it’s too weak HFE will it just not be loud enough?


----------



## chongmagic (Apr 7, 2019)

The range depends on the type of tranny you use. 2SB171 from specs have 50 minimum hfe. So 50 and over is what you would want. Small bear will sell a matched pair with the correct hfe.


----------



## bkn1966 (Apr 7, 2019)

Matched?  I thought the second transistor is supposed to have a higher hfe?


----------



## chongmagic (Apr 7, 2019)

They match Q1 and Q2 so that they are the optimal values. From what I recall Q1 is always lower in hfe than Q2.


----------

