J201 quality

[crw414]

Hi everyone
 New builder here , just finished my first pedal last week [ woodrow ] and am keen to get my skills up to be able to build more. I'm very keen to build the wampler '65 and tweed '57 but I have been reading about the j201 being discontinued and there possibly being fakes or less than proper spec versions being sold. Would anyone like to share reliable suppliers or experiences. I have bought from tayda , for me in Australia their rates and parts are awesome  and I'd like to be able to continue to use them .
thanks, and this site is the best I've seen.

[alltrax74]

I lately built the Black 65 with J201s from Tayda
As their specs vary a lot, you will have to socket all the bias resistors and chose the right resistor value to get the drains around 4.5-5V
I had good results on mine

[induction]

I bought 75 J201's from Tayda and tested them for use in the Black '65 and the Plexi-Drive.

One out of 75 biased between 4.5V and 5V in the Black '65. About 7 biased between 5.4V and 5.6V, which might be close enough. The rest biased above 6V.

None of them biased between 4.5V and 5V in the Plexi-Drive. The closest ones biased at about 3.3V. Many were closer to 1.2V.

That's not to say any of them were fakes or defective. Jfets have very wide tolerances. Notice that my J201's generally biased too high for the Black 65 and too low for the Plexi-Drive. Wampler makes circuits that rely on J201's being sorted into specific bins. These bins appear to be at opposite extremes of the tolerances for these two circuits. They aren't necessarily faulty or outside of the listed tolerance just because they don't work in a specific Wampler circuit.

Also remember that tayda doesn't make jfets, they just distribute them. Their suppliers are not necessarily going to be different from those of other sellers.

If you want to make these pedals, you'll probably have to buy lots and lots of them, and sort them, just like Wampler does.

[crw414]

Thanks guys , I've seen that fairchild are still making the smd version ,which can be modified to be through hole. I've found a small supply in australia , maybe I'll have a go with them and see if their tolerances are a little closer to what I need.

[adstrum]

You might be able to use an industry standard SOIC to DIP converter.

[crw414]

cool , I'll look into them

[otalgiafx]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjcsL6tHdl8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUGhzS1GbX-yxyBrUJtnUMoA

[crw414]

yep , that's the video that sold me on the idea, he makes it look easy. I'm going to try it with some offcut vero and see how small/large it will be.hopefully it's a viable solution.
thanks for posting that video.