Felis Fusor

Vero build of the Steel Panther Pussy Melter effect, also available as the Face Melter from PedalPCB.com. Used the layout from Dirtbox Layouts.

This one caught my attention because of the mosfet parts (CA3240EZ, BS170). Good challenge to fit it in a 1590B with four pots and a switch. That was bound to go wrong of course.

I was quite happy with how it turned out only to realize that a width of 23 rows doesn't fit in a 1590B. So I had to cut the extra rows I always add to tidy up the offboard wiring. So the wires look all crappy now and I didn't feel like replacing them. When rocking before boxing everything seemed to work ok. After boxing it the high gain setting didn't work properly, apparently more people suffer from that issue. When flipping the switch to engage the high gain setting the unit starts to oscillate. This was with a single coil guitar on an amp at bedroom volume. When testing with a humbucker guitar on a loud amp there was no oscillation whatsoever.

Like I said, I'm not really satisfied how boxing this thing turned out. The 1µF cap on the right side of the board now sticks out, the wiring looks crappy and the electrolytic on the top left had to be bend so next time I'm going to use lower ones. All electrolytics are Panasonic FC's, those are also available in SMD form factor, maybe that works better in builds like this one where the board rests on the back of the pots. Also I might try Wima 1µF film caps next time,those are a bit smaller than the Kemet ones I used now.

Next time I want the switch to operate vertically instead of horizontally but I had to find out the hard way that I had no other choice due to space constraints. The enclosure itself is a bit of an experiment, got it from AliExpress and it's probably one of the cheapest enclosures available.

In the meanwhile I found out that I accidentally stuck a CA3260EZ inside, wonder if there's any difference when replacing it with a CA3240EZ. It sounds great, maybe even better than a Mostortion.