Broken Fuzz Factory?

[legoperson813]

So I opened my ZVez Vexter Fuzz Factory today just to check it out and there seems to be a missing capacitor? On the circuit board, there's a place where a "D2" cap supposedly goes, but alas it is not there. Can someone verify that there is supposed to be a capacitor here. and if it is missing, am I screwed?

The pedal sounds ok to my ears, but perhaps it could sound a lot better haha.

[Scruffie]

D2 suggests diode rather than capacitor and there are no diodes in the Fuzz face urmm I mean Fuzz Factory design

Boards regularly have spaces spare for changes in design, or making other effects (when I had a Vexter Fuzz Factory it had a whole section of missing parts to make it the Fuzz Probe) it's probably a polarity protection diode that he decided to leave off for some reason, nothing to worry about.

The pedal sounds ok to my ears, but perhaps it could sound a lot better haha.

And it's supposed to sound like that

If you want to change the tone it's fairly easy with a few component changes/ additions, just ask.

[Teej212]

isnt it a clipped diode? i remember reading somewhere he put diodes in but then just clipped them

[FuzzHugger]

I wouldn't be concerned at all. You'll notice things like that on most boards out there, I think. Many PCBs serve double uses (same circuit, different parts), or have a part the designer eventually decided to remove.
When designing PCBs, I often leave a (strategically placed) empty space for modding/experimenting reasons, or an extra eyelet for an additional/optional ground point, etc...and sometimes these spaces remain blank.

Also, I think I read that Vexter series pedals are machine-populated boards, so they're probably less likely to miss a part than a human.