transistor orientation

[BramcoteLorne]

hi all,

I've been stuggling with a problem with my builds for the past few months.

Something is not quite right, after every chord or note I play there is a nasty fuzzy sort of crackle and then the note/chord kinda fades in and out till it can't be heard anymore, sounds a bit like:
'whoom...whoom......whoom.......whoom..........whooom.........'.

it's worse the harder I play and the hotter the pickup.

I've not been building ckt's for long but I have the same problem with
anything I attempt (so far: aron's beginner project, EH LPB1 boost, vox
distortion booster, bazz fuzz, ruby amp).

I can't understand why everything I build has the same symptoms and yet I can't find any info on similar problems in any FAQ's.

I'm wondering if I could have damaged my transistors, I have them in sockets and if I put it in the wrong way I just flip it round till it works.


does any of this make any sense to anyone?



dave.

[niftydog]

it is quite easy to find the pinouts for most transistors. you should make the effort to do that first rather than using the random orientation method! Google is your friend!

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

It is madness not to have a cheap meter that you can check transistor polarity with. It's a lot faster than google! plus, even with the data sheet, i can never tell which way is up!
I doubt it is the transistor, with these circuits wrong polarity shouldn't hurt it. Unless you have shorted the base to the power line for example.
Lash out on a new transistor. to be sure.

[BramcoteLorne]

ok:

a new transistor is correctly in the socket, and still no change, is this a problem anyone has had before?



dave.