1. Cast aluminum pedal. Fuck yeah

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2. Fran, you're the best, always.

   I've built this circuit a couple of times (just finished the first one on perfboard instead of a breadboard tonight) and I just came by to mention that it still works on 9V with a 2N3904/6 pair, all I had to do was rebias the base of Q1. It's still got the toanz, but the increase in the output peak voltage definitely means it needs a volume on the output instead of the input.

   A 15khz RC filter on the input means no more radio reception, too.

   I was so jazzed when you dropped this video because my late father was a diehard Heathkit guy, and this thing has been on my radar for years.

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3. I have one of these that I built. I have it inside my Vox Pacemaker amp that I bought back in the mid 60's. I think the last time I tried it it didn't work, but I should try it again. I think that they are worth a lot now.

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4. I grew up near the St. Joseph and Benton Harbor area. Several of my friends and neighbors worked at either Heath or Zenith Data Systems. When I went to junior college, several of my instructors were either retired or active Heath/ Zenith employees from their educational division. The older techs have cool stories. They had a motto, "never let the customer fail." If a customer had trouble building a kit, they could get either phone support or send their kit back and have a tech fix it or finish it.

   A friend became the expert on HERO robots. He would pull the rat's nest of wires out and replace them with an organized wiring harness. I was hired after Groupe Bull bought ZDS, and Heath became a separate entity by then.

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5. Those top labels aren't upside down when looked at from the perspective of the person connecting to the input and from the output, who might very well be on that side of the pedal.
   Is it not possible to adjust the LEVEL control so that the volume is approximately the same on/off?
   When is it drawing current from the battery? Only if there is a guitar cord plugged into it?

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6. It's got a great sound for rhythm, so long as you have a guitar that's in tune, and someone that knows how to set up the amp, and also knows how crush an axe. But, so long as those variables are met, the fuzz pedal by HealthKit sounds great!

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7. I have had negative batteries from new packs

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8. Pro – Having a fixed cord avoided an extra expensive ! socket. Con – Tripping over the unit doesnt give you an extra cord break point as the jack flies out (though they are a tight friction fit)

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9. Fran, I have an old Fuzz and WaWa pedal by Fender but this one by Heathkit is interesting… Thank you

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10. ALGORITHMO HAS BLESSED ME AGAIN WITH ANOTHER CHANNEL SHOULD I WISH I'D HAVE FOUND SOONER! Better late than never! Awesome video, thank you for sharing this pedal with us, kind of crunchy, I like it! 👍🙂🐧🐧

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11. I picked up Radio Moscow one night on my amp because I had a old Banana guitar tuner in the signal chain and heard Russian voice speaking to me from the amp. My dad is a HAM and I ran to get him to check it out. He laughed his ass off!

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12. Very cool. I borrowed an unbranded wedge shaped two knob fuzz that ran from a 1.5V battery once, and it also had a big volume drop when engaged. I thought it was broken at the time, but I new very little about electronics then. I considered at the time whether I should try to plug a 9V into it, but it's probably better than I didn't.

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13. Only the jack labels are upside down. They may have thought you’d rather get up and plug it in vs picking up the giant pedal while you were playing.

    That thing is a tank. It’s like a 53 Chevy.

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14. The nice things about the Heathkits is that they are good for modifications and experimenting. Such a simple circuit is ripe for mods.

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