This is a second version of the Univox Super Fuzz. Check out the first version in these posts. The first version fit a 1590BB sized box. This time I thought I’d try and get it into a smaller 1590B box (this is my favorite size).
This worked pretty well but jacks and footswitch are a tight fit and required more careful drilling. This board might be a better fit for a 125B.
I had these PCBs manufactured at OSHPark.com. Their service is pretty good. the boards are well made, costwise its hard to beat PCBWay.com. OSHPark charges $5 square inch, and provide 3 PCBs with free shipping.
These boards are 2.04 x 2.17 inch. They came out to $22.10 shipped, for three PCBs. That’s $7.37 per board. PCBWay would have been $5 for 10 boards but, shipping would have been $22.76. Overall cost is greater but, cost per board is much cheaper at $2.78. If you only need 1 to 3 boards and your in the US OSHPark might be an option!
Luckily this one worked first attempt! The process I used was to copy my original Eagle project and modify the PCB layout. This meant that I had a tested schematic. Just changing the layout meant that chance of an error was much lower.
This is based on a schematic from freestomboxes.org. There are a lot of great builds in the thread. This schematic adds a trim pot to tune the octave, and another to tune the diode clipping. It also adds an external tone pot.
Conclusion
Great build if you like octave fuzz. This sounds as good as any nasty octave fuzz. The trim pot helps tune the octave. The tone pot is good and adds a useful option.
If there are any cons, I’d say its the complexity, the part count is very high. While the sound is good I think you could make a fuzz that sounds as good with fewer parts.
Should you build this? If you like nasty octave fuzz, if you are looking for doom metal sounds yes, build this. If octave fuzz is not your thing, or you already have an octave fuzz you like, you might pass, and build this tremolo instead.
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