Crybaby Restoration

[DrNomis_44]

Finally found my Jim Dunlop Crybaby pedal, so here's a couple of pics of the internals:






Here's a tip, if the stock SPDT (single-pole double-throw) footswitch ever goes intermittent in operation, you can easily replace it with a 3PDT footswitch, I did that with my Jimi Hendrix Wah, and after adjusting the footswitch so that the treadle switches it reliably, it worked perfectly.

I'm seriously considering modding both my Jimi Hendrix Wah pedal, and my Crybaby Wah pedal so that they both have indicator leds, I'll start a new thread detailing how to do the indicator led mod later on.

[Sonic Mountain]

Cheers Doc. That's the later circuit board, mine is the first one they changed to the jacks being directly soldered to the circuit board. Mine doesn't have the 'buffer' in the circuit apparently.

Electronics is a bit of a new frontier for me. I've always been fine with electrics in general, but once you get into this level my knowledge is sketchy at best.

But yep thanks for the tip. I may just replace all the guts, it's not that dear compared to a whole new pedal. I'd like to try and problem solve and learn a bit first though.

[Bakersdozen]

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.

[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.

[Bakersdozen]

Thanks Doc!

Managed to get the LED working correctly by bridging the earth over to the spare lug. Found that out when doing the continuity tests and connected that lug and the LED went out. Now it works as expected.

In regards to the pulldown resistors, does it matter which one to use ie. 1M or 2M2 ? And would these be suitable?

https://www.evatco.com.au/1-watt-metal-oxide-resistors

I just can't find anything pertaining to 1% on there though.

Going to do the gain and vocal mod next, which is just swapping out 2 resistors. Do you also rekon that replacing the caps with orange drops would be worth it on the triple wah mod? Would it make that much of a difference to the sound quality in your opinion?

Sorry Sonic for hijacking your thread.

[DrNomis_44]

Thanks Doc!

Managed to get the LED working correctly by bridging the earth over to the spare lug. Found that out when doing the continuity tests and connected that lug and the LED went out. Now it works as expected.

In regards to the pulldown resistors, does it matter which one to use ie. 1M or 2M2 ? And would these be suitable?

https://www.evatco.com.au/1-watt-metal-oxide-resistors

I just can't find anything pertaining to 1% on there though.

Going to do the gain and vocal mod next, which is just swapping out 2 resistors. Do you also rekon that replacing the caps with orange drops would be worth it on the triple wah mod? Would it make that much of a difference to the sound quality in your opinion?

Sorry Sonic for hijacking your thread.

You can use either a 1M or a 2M2 resistor, it won't make much of a difference other than getting rid of the pop, those 1W metal film resistors will work, the resistor can even be a 1/4 Watt 5% carbon film type and will also work, you might not hear much of a difference if you swap the stock caps for orange drops, since the Wah pedal is running on a +9V supply.


The resistor just needs to be high enough in value so that it doesn't present too much of a load to the signal, and either a 1M or 2M2 resistor will do the job fine.