DON'T THROW OUT THAT LIGHT BULB !!!

[earthtonesaudio]

It's a good excuse to review the old-school techniques used to wring every last ounce of gain out of weak transistors, back before high gains were "standard." 

Techniques like bootstrapping, positive feedback, mu-amp, active loads, etc.

I'm thinking of taking the two out of my latest salvaged CFL and making a single cascode gain stage with an LM317-based current source or mu-style load,  for an "industrial-strength" boost. 


Otherwise, they might be useful for switching power supplies... 

[ninjaaron]

It's a good excuse to review the old-school techniques used to wring every last ounce of gain out of weak transistors, back before high gains were "standard." 

Techniques like bootstrapping, positive feedback, mu-amp, active loads, etc.

what's that? I only know what a mu amp is. where can I find more info about that other stuff?

[earthtonesaudio]

Bootstrapping: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=71187.0
Positive feedback: http://www.tpub.com/neets/book8/30f.htm
mu-amp: http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/modmuamp/modmuamp.htm
Active load: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/worksheets/activeload.html

here, and google.  However, a lot of this knowledge is from the before internet era, so it can be a little hard to find.  Most of these techniques also apply to vacuum tubes, so that's another place to look.

[ninjaaron]

wow, thanks.

[Gus]

At a food store the other day I saw an article in  MAKE magazine.
Anyone else see this?  Was this mentioned before?

http://makezine.com/19/diycircuits_cflreuse/

[juse]

At a food store the other day I saw an article in  MAKE magazine.
Anyone else see this?  Was this mentioned before?

http://makezine.com/19/diycircuits_cflreuse/

Andy did that article for MAKE- very cool.

[bluesdevil]

Ha, a bulb finally blew and this thread popping up recently reminded me to save it!
Well, I took a stab at Andy's "Flourescent Fuzz" on the breadboard and it didn't fire up.
Turns out the transistors were PNP (?) with a hfe of 50.
Luckily, I've been salvaging parts off whatever broken electronics I could find for the last few years and used some 3904's to keep it a recycled project...... it fired up right away with gloriously HUGE fuzz!!!!!!!!! I get a little bit of screeching noise, but with the guitar's tone knob down it's perfect.
   I'm gonna try to search my old salvaged boards for the resistor values to make it 100% recycled, but that'll test my patience for sure.
     Bottom line is I'm impressed with this no-knobber. Hats off to Dragonfly "Andy", DIY fuzz legend!!!

[solderman]

Be aware that these things contain toxic mercury and therefore should be disposed of in an environmentally safe way

[bluesdevil]

Be aware that these things contain toxic mercury and therefore should be disposed of in an environmentally safe way

That's my luck. I find a fuzz I like and it'll give me cancer.

[dukie]

hey how about recycling broken PC power supply unit? ive already salvaged 2 unit of my broken PC's PSU! it got a lot of parts! these are some parts in just one PSU..

- at least 3 medium/mini transformers(got this serials in the two mini trafo YX EE-16-A, YX EE-19-3B anybody can find a usefull project for this trafo's?using it for bass brass maybe?  )
- 3 medium toroid coil and 2 small toroids (how do you measure these thing because no marking on them?usable for wah pedals?)
- 5 to 8 102, 103, 104 ceramic and mylar caps
- LM339N chips
- 3 to 5 TL431 proggammable precission shunt regulator transistors
- 3 to 5 C1815 general purpose NPN transistor (low noise with minimum hFE 70 and max hFE 700.its a high gain and you can build sick metal fuzz out of it! )
- 5 1uF Electro Caps and a few high value elco caps (220 to 1000uF)
- 1 big red 105 mylar caps
- 6 power transistor with big heatsink on it!
- 1 PC817 photocoupler chip
- and whole lot of resistors range form 100 ohm to 1M!

these PSU are cheap here in indonesia, around $7.5 each and because of the cheap price they broke after 4-6 month!so i got my self 2 of them laying around while years ago i used to throw 'em away (what a waste!)

I'll post some pic after i got my self a digital camera. or maybe open a new thread on this topic, since this thread is for salvaging light bulbs 
and now i just remember that i have a broken motorcycle CDI ignition unit and think to salvaging it too (if i can somehow remove the rubber epoxy that covers it  )

anyone have any idea to use those parts for other guitar pedals instead of fuzz?

Cheers!

[edvard]

The cases can be used to house small tube amps or other tube projects.
The toroids are excellent for building a Joule Thief or two:
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/joulethief
I made one and housed it in a small plastic case from Radio shack.
The circuit will easily power two white LED's from 1.5v 

The LM339's are quad comparators (op-amps) so find a few projects using quad ops and you're gold.

I've been wondering if it would be possible to build a fuzz pedal with optocouplers, but I have no idea how to go about that.

The GP transistors oughta find a home just about anywhere you want to build a silicon fuzz or distortion.

The power transistors might be good for building a smaller solid-state amp.
Maybe upgrade a pignose!

The power regulators would be rated for computer power; 12 and 5 volts.
The 5 volters would be good for circuits that use cmos inverters that INSIST on 5 volt power.

I posted on AX84 a loooong time ago about using power transformers for tube outputs. It actually works pretty well and I made a chart once to keep track of what voltage ratios would match what impedance.
I'll dig it out tonight...

Other than that, you got some nice power resistors and fat caps to play with.

[dukie]

The cases can be used to house small tube amps or other tube projects.
The toroids are excellent for building a Joule Thief or two:
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/joulethief
I made one and housed it in a small plastic case from Radio shack.
The circuit will easily power two white LED's from 1.5v 

hi edvard,
if those toroid can be used to light a led until the battery completly dead, i wonder if they somehow used in a battery powered stompbox so the battery can be use until its really really dry?because some stompbox like my 4049 based distortion mod really power hungry its suck battery dry very fast, but when im using the used battery im my fuzz its still ok. well thats just my crazy idea after too much reading of evil mad scientist dot com articles

The LM339's are quad comparators (op-amps) so find a few projects using quad ops and you're gold.

im googling it right away!

I've been wondering if it would be possible to build a fuzz pedal with optocouplers, but I have no idea how to go about that.

you're the true mad mad guitar effect scientist! edvard but PM me if you successfully make one 

The power transistors might be good for building a smaller solid-state amp.
Maybe upgrade a pignose!

hmm this is interesting!

cheers!

[Carlos Best]

After reading this topic one of my bulbs died today. Sinchronicity

I had found: a toroidal coil, a small transformer, several caps, resistors,
some 1n4007 in a Bridge, some electrolitics (one large one rated at 400v)

I also have a diode? or a fuse? its in a glass package.

The transistors are marked 13001S
this are high voltages ones. with a colector emiter voltage of 500v
The question is: They wount be usefull for effects no?

[earthtonesaudio]

I've been wondering if it would be possible to build a fuzz pedal with optocouplers, but I have no idea how to go about that.

http://www.geocities.com/thetonegod/thunder_alley/thunder_alley.html

The transistors are marked 13001S
this are high voltages ones. with a colector emiter voltage of 500v
The question is: They wount be usefull for effects no?

Hm... define "useful." 

[dukie]

I've been wondering if it would be possible to build a fuzz pedal with optocouplers, but I have no idea how to go about that.

http://www.geocities.com/thetonegod/thunder_alley/thunder_alley.html

wow this is just awesome! ive been to tone's god website before but that time i dont even know what the heck an optocoupler is thank you for the link earthonesaudio !

lets play with some thunder then!

cheers!

[WGTP]

Since the transistors are low hfe, a darlington arrangment may be in order.  30X30= 900Hfe  How about a Tone Bender 

[edvard]

I've been wondering if it would be possible to build a fuzz pedal with optocouplers, but I have no idea how to go about that.

http://www.geocities.com/thetonegod/thunder_alley/thunder_alley.html

Far out!
I assume the opamps on the front end are for gain because the optos don't have any?
I wonder what kind of signal you could get using the diode portion in a clipping section of a generic dist/od box and stealing signal off the collector?
*edvard opens LTSpice*

The transistors are marked 13001S
this are high voltages ones. with a colector emiter voltage of 500v
The question is: They wount be usefull for effects no?

Hm... define "useful." 

I THINK the high-voltage rating is a tolerance, not a requirement.
I may be wrong but I remember a long time ago firing up some big square power transistors in a fuzz face configuration and it actually worked!
Made me think it would be funny to build something with a couple of those big diamond shaped transistors I salvaged from somewhere.

Another 'mojo' mod, perhaps?

[Carlos Best]

hahaha

With usefull I mean if a 9v battery could break through this transistors...

Lets breadboard something

[nbabmf]

I found Andy's article in the latest issue of MAKE magazine while I was killing time at the book store last week.  I found a couple dead CFL's in the garage and dismantled them today.  I ended up with enough components to build the Fluorescent Fuzz almost verbatim.  I had to supply a few resistors, but all the caps and transistors came from the bulbs.

Unfortunately, the fuzz is super low output.  I had to slam it with an overdrive pedal set to clean boost to even get unity gain.  I can't even get it to break up.  It had a nice sparkle to it though, which gives me hope!  The transistors weren't marked, so I had no idea what to expect in terms of gain.  Luckily, the PCB inside the light bulb had the pinout printed on it.  I have a vague idea where to go from here because it's very similar to the Fuzz Face circuit, but I'm posting this in the hopes someone else might have some ideas as well!

In the meantime, I'll be busting open more light bulbs!

[Kearns892]

My dad gave me a broken power inverter. I opened it up and wow, I know what I am doing tomorrow