Crybaby Restoration

[DrNomis_44]

Just did the true bypass, triple wah (stock/Hendrix/bass wah) and LED mod to my crybaby.

Sounds great and you can change tones at the flick of a switch. The only thing I am experiencing is that the LED is constantly illuminated, albeit very dimly, when the wah circuit is off. Goes brighter when the wah is activated. And there is an audible pop when the circuit is activated.

Currently troubleshooting this, but open to suggestions if anyone has been thru the same thing. I followed stinkfoot.se for the processes.

If one pole of the footswitch is used to switch the indicator led on and off, then it's possible that there might be some bad contacts in the footswitch that's causing the led to be constantly illuminated, does your Wah pedal use a 2PDT, or 3PDT footswitch?, you can check the contacts by using a multimeter set to continuity test....hope that helps.

[Bakersdozen]

If one pole of the footswitch is used to switch the indicator led on and off, then it's possible that there might be some bad contacts in the footswitch that's causing the led to be constantly illuminated, does your Wah pedal use a 2PDT, or 3PDT footswitch?, you can check the contacts by using a multimeter set to continuity test....hope that helps.

Brand new 3PDT from Pedal Parts, Doc. Can I do the continuity test with the switch still wired up, or will I have to de-solder all points to test?

[DrNomis_44]

Brand new 3PDT from Pedal Parts, Doc. Can I do the continuity test with the switch still wired up, or will I have to de-solder all points to test?

Yep, you should still be able to do continuity tests with the switch wired up, some of the 3PDT footswitches I've used have ended up with loose solder terminals after I took too long soldering wires to them and overheated them, this tends to cause the contacts to go a bit intermittent.

[Bakersdozen]

Yep, you should still be able to do continuity tests with the switch wired up, some of the 3PDT footswitches I've used have ended up with loose solder terminals after I took too long soldering wires to them and overheated them, this tends to cause the contacts to go a bit intermittent.

Righteo, is that fixable or do you need a new switch?
And do you rekon that would be the root cause of the pop on activation?

[DrNomis_44]

Righteo, is that fixable or do you need a new switch?
And do you rekon that would be the root cause of the pop on activation?

In some cases it may be fixable like for example if the footswitch is a 3PDT but only two of the poles have been used, you can just simply solder the wires from the faulty pole onto the unused but good pole , but I usually just replace the switch with a new one, the pop you hear on activation is usually due to charge build ups in the input coupling cap of the pedal's circuitry, you can fix that by soldering a 1M or 2M2 1% metal film resistor from the tip connection of the input socket to the sleeve connection of the input socket, doing this will allow the built-up charge to bleed-off to ground, since the resistor is very high in value it will not have any audible effect on the sound.