Making Germanium leaky?

[Marbles]

Hey Guys,

This might be odd (or not), but I was wondering.. I have, like many others I guess, ordered bags full of the Gt308 I or V transistors. Some Hfe's are good, others less good. They have 1 thing in common: Zero to none measurable leakage through the atlas.

Great in some instances, less in others. Of course I  can buy different trannies, i'm sure there are a lot of leaky to find, but I remember somewhere that you can make them more leaky by adding a resistor.

How would someone go about doing that? I still have the Maestro on my list, but never did cause of the transistors.

Could I use the very stable russians and mod the circuit to let them function more leaky? Maybe even add a trimpot or something to control it more?

Hope this isn't utter nonsense!


Grtz,

Marc

[Travis]

You can, but it usually doesn't sound right. The FZ-1A is a bit easier than the FZ-1

[nocentelli]

Marbles wrote

Hey Guys,

This might be odd (or not), but I was wondering.. I have, like many others I guess, ordered bags full of the Gt308 I or V transistors. Some Hfe's are good, others less good. They have 1 thing in common: Zero to none measurable leakage through the atlas.

Great in some instances, less in others. Of course I  can buy different trannies, i'm sure there are a lot of leaky to find, but I remember somewhere that you can make them more leaky by adding a resistor.

How would someone go about doing that? I still have the Maestro on my list, but never did cause of the transistors.

Could I use the very stable russians and mod the circuit to let them function more leaky? Maybe even add a trimpot or something to control it more?

The Skreddy Lunar Module is based on a tonebender mkII-ish circuit: The "fuzzface" part has a 100k resistor across the first transistor base-collector, and I remember Marc saying this was to simulate the leaky-ness of germanium when using silicon transistors. Worth trying out, perhaps.

[Marbles]

Thanks guys. I will experiment with it, see what comes out.

Maybe the Fz1a is a better start though... Thanks!

[zosotone]

You can put a resistor (1M2 to 2M) between base and collector of Q1 and Q2. It's important on the tonebender for example.

Cheers!