Univox Super Fuzz Clone

One of my friends asked if I could build a Univox Super Fuzz clone using enclosure he liked. I used the vero layout on Guitar FX Layouts blog at http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2012/01/univox-super-fuzz.html.

Here's the completed enclosure (I had nothing to do with the design—not sure what the story is on that):

To preserve a bit of vintage feel, I did not include an LED or a DC jack on the pedal. When I thought I was finally done, my friend asked if I could put a jack in, so that was the final step.

I had already mounted the board to the closure with mounting tape, so rather than remove that and risk cracking the board or scratching the paint or the like, I decided to install the jack with everything else in place. 

To drill the hole without getting metal bits all over the inside of the pedal, I stuffed a shirt inside the enclosure. When I was done with the shirt, I hung it back up in my wife's closet, in case she planned on wearing it to work the next day : )

I snipped the positive battery wire, leaving a little wire on the terminal:

I then rerouted the long end of that wire to the DC jack. This wire now supplies the 9V+ to the board from the jack instead of the battery. 

Quick explanation: For those who don't know, the battery is connected to one of two positive terminals on the DC jack. The other positive terminal supplies power to the board. When using a battery for power, these two terminals are connected, so the power comes from the battery, through the two terminals and to the board. When a DC power supply is inserted into the jack, these two terminals are disconnected. So even if the battery is plugged in, it no longer is connected to the board in any way. The power comes straight from the power supply to the board.

I then spliced a wire onto the short positive wire on the battery terminal and ran that to the jack. After grounding the jack, I was done:

And here is a quick and sloppy demo of Sasquatch playing through the Super Fuzz (I'm not sure what my camera was focused on, but it's nothing I can see). The Balance and Expander knobs are at about 7 or 8. Half way through, I flick the Tone switch. My dinky camera mic captures the difference, but not faithfully.

AMZ Mini-Booster in an Old Clock

What time is it? Time to play the geetar!

I recently built a version of the AMZ Mini-Booster based on the vero board layout on Guitar FX Layouts (best blog ever, and quite possibly the reason the Internet was invented).

It looked like a very quick build (I was determined to finish it in one go), and I had most of the parts on hand, but I did not have a small enclosure. However, I did have an old digital clock that stopped working, and I had set it by my workbench intending to take a look at it sometime. It wasn't the perfect size, but it was on hand and it had a battery compartment. 

I removed all of the clock's innards and glued in place all of the buttons (snooze, hour, minute, etc.) that had been held in place by those innards. My super glue was hardened and useless, so I used Gorilla Glue, which expands when it dries, hence the mess.

I drilled two holes in the back for input and output, two on top for the switch and level knob and wired them all to the little vero board held in place by stiff wires coming from the pot. I put the battery in, and it was ready to go.

Sounded good (see video demo below), and I ended up selling it on ebay for $30. The enclosure is pretty sturdy—fine for home, but I doubt it would last long at all under regular stage use.

If I were to do a similar project again, I would drill another hole in the top for the LED. I was trying to be clever and have it shine out through the display lens, but the LED wasn't in a great location and the red plastic is darker than I thought.

The pot, switch and jacks were all salvaged. Poor choice of glue.

Battery compartment already built in