DSOTM Fuzz (Dark of the Moon)

[Cybercow]

I recently completed my version of GuitarPCB’s “DSOTM Fuzz”. Modified by adding clear pot shafts and clear knobs with slow-color-cycling LEDs beneath each of the pot shafts. I was able to circumvent the noise introduced by the color-cycling LEDs by adding a couple of caps (100nF & 0.1nF) to both sides of the DC input to the clear pot-shaft daughterboards. The noise is now gone and the unit is dead quiet when engaged with no signal coming in. The photos were taken before I added the noise canceling caps.

I just tested it out with my Strat thru a Line 6 Spider Jam and also thru a Vox MV50 – it sounds great. I also put a GuitarPCB “MoRCv3” compressor in front of it; while it’s not a super-fuzzy unit with the compressor, just a nicely subtle, (yet definitive), long, lingering fuzz.

I couldn’t find a 1K pot with a clear shaft so I used an available 5K and dropped a 2.7K resistor across pins 1 & 3 of that 5K pot and it works a treat.

After I get the mess around my bench cleaned up, (from all the trouble-shooting I had to do on this pedal – it had a wonky Q1 that gave me fits and replacing that cleared the final issues), I’ll make a video, post it up on YouTube and share it.

What I love about this pedal is the idea I had to use the clear-shafted pots and color-cycling LEDs underneath them. The added bonus is that the ultra-microchip inside each of the color-cycling LEDs is that they do NOT stay in synch and after a few color rotations they all rotate thru their different colors, cycling thru their respective colors at an ever-so-slightly different rate. Awesome IMO.

Thanks for reading and happy building. (Obligatory circuit porn follows.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anonymous]

Great work and a great light show!

[Barry]

Excellent! Thanks for taking the time to lay it all out so we can all see the process involved!

[Cybercow]

Wilkie, Barry – Thanks for the kudos. Always happy to share. I’m rather excited about the photo-journaling I’m doing for the Animal\SS-02 combo build I’m working on. There are so many measurements to get dead-on to get it all into 1590BB enclosure and with the all the daughter-boards & graphics, it’s taking a lot longer than I anticipated because . . . .  Oh! Look! Another build I want to do! Durn squirrels are everywhere. LOL!

[Matt]

Brilliantly done. This was the very first build I ever did and I still come back to it because it nails the tone of the solo in Time. I accidentally reversed my Input and Output jacks and still haven’t managed to go back in and fix them… Beautiful work as always. Looking forward to your future builds Mark.

[Anonymous]

Great work as always and I love the photo-journal effort.

-Scott

[Author]

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