Just fixed my Ibanez TS-808 pedal.

[DrNomis_44]

I had another hiccup with my TS-808 pedal earlier tonight, I plugged my guitar in expecting the pedal to work fine and it made a really strange squealing noise which eventually went away, and then it stopped footswitching properly, the indicator Led refused to light up when the pedal did footswitch, and then the sound got very distorted as if the battery was dying, I tried plugging in my Carson 9V plugpack in the DC in socket on the TS-808 pedal and the pedal worked perfectly, so, I got my multimeter and used it to test the battery, it read about 9.2V, I tried a second good 9V battery just to be sure with same results, so I had a look at the 9V battery connector and...as it turned out the cause of the malfunction was simply a broken red wire in the 9V battery clip itself, so I carefully desoldered the battery clip wires and then replaced the battery clip with a new one, that fixed the pedal completely so it worked properly with a 9V battery.

[Andy40]

That would have taken me hours to work that out doc...

[Kick]

Nice example of deducted research. Good job!

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Seems like I'm still not out of the woods with my TS-808 pedal, the pedal seems to function fine when my Carson 9V DC Plugpack adaptor is plugged into it, but when I try to run it off it's internal 9V battery it doesn't seem to be working properly, I've tested the 9V battery and it is fine, so I'm thinking that it's either the replacement battery clip, or a bad contact in the DC in socket, so, I'm going to have to do some more detective work with my multimeter this afternoon.


A lot of the times with these pedals there's a couple of contacts in the DC in socket that disconnect the battery when a plugpack adaptor is plugged into it, when the plugpack is disconnected from the pedal, the two contacts short-together and connect the 9V battery up to the circuit-board in the pedal, if these contacts are dirty then the contacts won't properly short together, I might have a replacement socket that I can use in amongst my bits and pieces.


Update:

After a quick bit of detective work with my multimeter, I think I have found the cause of the problem, it appears that the two contacts in the DC in socket that connect the + terminal of the 9V battery to the power in on the circuit board, aren't making proper contact like they're supposed to, checking the continuity of the contacts with my multimeter set to continuity test produces no beeping sound from my multimeter, thus indicating that that there's no continuity between the two contacts when there should be, because of this the circuit board isn't getting power from the 9V battery when it's supposed to, the reason why the pedal powers up with my Carson 9V DC plugpack adaptor is that the plugpack adaptor is bypassing the battery when it's plugged in, so, replacing the DC in socket should fix the problem once and for all.

[Simon Barden]

You could always try squirting some contact cleaner into the 9v socket, then push the adapter in and out a few times to see if that clears any dirty or corroded contacts.

Also worth double-checking that you didn't connect the new battery clip wires the wrong way round.

[DrNomis_44]

You could always try squirting some contact cleaner into the 9v socket, then push the adapter in and out a few times to see if that clears any dirty or corroded contacts.

Also worth double-checking that you didn't connect the new battery clip wires the wrong way round.

Cheers mate, I guess I could have tried cleaning the contacts, but it's easy enough just to replace the original DC in socket altogether cause I've found a replacement for it that I know is a good one, when I soldered in the new battery clip, I triple-checked that I got the polarity correct.

[Simon Barden]

Glad you triple-checked at the time. It's always worth asking the question, just in case.

Just a thought, but why isn't 'triple' spelt with 3 'p's.

[DrNomis_44]

Glad you triple-checked at the time. It's always worth asking the question, just in case.

Just a thought, but why isn't 'triple' spelt with 3 'p's.

Yep, as the saying goes "Measure twice, cut once", and I agree, it's always good to triple-check things to make sure they are 100% correct, because human beings aren't infallible, we make mistakes, and it's usually when we have lapses in concentration that mistakes are more likely to occur.

I think the reason why "Triple" isn't spelt with three 'p's is probably due to one of those quirks of the English language, the really interesting thing is, the English language is actually a mixture of other languages which goes back to ancient times.


I'm just in the process of searching for some suitable wire to wire-up the new DC in socket to the circuit board, I really want to find a piece of 3-way ribbon cable rather than use three separate pieces of wire, just to keep things neat.

Update:

I just found exactly what I was after, all I need to do now is un-solder the old DC in socket and replace it with the new one and then it should be good to go.

I'll post some pics so you can see what the old socket and the new socket look like and the piece of 3-way ribbon wire I used to fit the new socket to the circuit board....stay tuned.


Here we go:





The small socket on the left hand side of the pic is the original DC in socket, the one on the right hand side is the new one, next to the new one is the piece of 3-way ribbon wire I'm going to use to connect it to the circuit board, the reason for that is that the new socket is a bit wider than the original, so I need to turn it 90 degrees in order to get it to fit, this necessitates connecting the three terminals to the circuit board via three pieces of wire, the good news is that the new socket will fit in the hole in the pedal's casing, and it will be held securely in place via a thin nut.


Before going any further, I thought it would be prudent to check that the two switched-contacts in the new DC in socket were indeed good, so I used my multimeter set to continuity test to test for continuity between the two contacts, fortunately they tested good.


And then out of curiosity, I picked up the old DC in socket and had a look at it,.....and now I know, as it turns out, one of the terminals on the old DC in socket is a bit loose (it happens to be one of the switched contacts that disconnects the battery when the adaptor is plugged in), I'm guessing that heat from soldering probably caused it to come lose.


So there you have it folks....the root-cause of all the trouble.

[Simon Barden]

...adjusts dial...

[DrNomis_44]

And here's a pic of the modified new DC in socket:




All I need to do now is solder the tinned ends of each of the three wires to their respective solder pads, and then mount the new DC socket in it's mounting hole in the pedal's casing, and then the repair job is done.


Update:

Just tested it out prior to putting the pedal back together again, and the pedal seems to be working properly again with it's 9V battery powering it, so...I'm calling it fixed.


And as you can see from the pic, the repair is un-noticeable: