freestompboxes.org

Alright guys. Sorry for the delay on this but I've got a sick amplifier that I've been trying to repair before a couple of shows later this week. I took some quick gut shots over the weekend and will be able to take more and attempt a first run at a schematic this weekend. Unfortunately the board is fixed to the enclosure using some kind of double-sided pad/styrofoam thing. Anyone have experience or suggestions with safely removing a board from that kind of thing?

Tried to upload the pictures directly to the forum (using images under 1MB using the upload attachment function) but i had some trouble with it. Linking them from Flickr for now:

flickr.com/photos/78389337@N02/7019577181/in/set-72157629676826673/

I use heat (hair dryer) to remove some 3M double sided pads with relative success, but in your case, apply heat can be a little tricky

Cool! Firstly I'd de-solder/clip out the input/output jacks, footswitch and power socket. You can resolder those later, that'll give you better access to the underside of the board. Then you can unscrew the pots and slide a razor blade underneath the pcb to prise it away from the styrofoam pad. Then it's just a case of clearing the sticky stuff away from the reverse of the board...

does this classify as "degooping"?

I ran into the same double-sided tape thing in the Dirty Bomb. I basically just forced it off. It's some kind of 3M mounting foam tape. So once you have all the bus wire connections desoldered, you can use a screw driver to pry the board off the tape. The PCB isn't going to break.

I don't know if Dave Barber lurks around here, but barber pedals have a spot on a forum, and part of their website has some pages that detail available DIY/factory mods to their pedals, some with step by step instructions (even if not with 'why's'). Dave has also shared schematics outright at times, and this is no 'new' pedal for the barber line, maybe he'd throw you a bone on the circuit before you even removed a bit of tape residue.

I dunno if this is one of the pedals that has published mods from Barber, but if you e-mailed someone at Barber, and/or anyone else is a member on that forum (if it's still active) within a few days you'd probably have tips on how to best remove that sticky tape...or at least the website or forum might serve as a resource for tips on how best to remove their circuit boards in general, to 'do work' on them, generally...

What I see is a MAX1044 for voltage doubling/bipolar power, and at least 2 mojo high voltage mico 250pf(?) caps, assuming those are part of the switching scheme to parallel one to the other as they are typical 'treble' filter cap values in passive tone stacks, if indeed this utilizes passive tone stack configuration (+ active gain control to restore lost volume from passive tone stacks). Just throwing some guesses out there.

The best thing to do is just loosen all the pots etc (anything that is directly connected to the pcb) and just prise it up. it's ony double sided tape it will lift off with minimal force.

@ tonight we ride, have you managed to do anything with this yet or did you give up on the trace ?

Ice-9 wrote:@ tonight we ride, have you managed to do anything with this yet or did you give up on the trace ?

Definitely more to come soon! Sorry about the delay to anyone that's still following this. I recently changed jobs and have been a bit busy... but i'm about to get back on top things.