My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

Firebrand

Firebrand

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Just over a year ago I ran into this insanely cool and highly versatile low power overdrive with a cryptic ice cream cone picture on it and the letters RHE. Finally, after tracking down the maker I discovered the version I had seen was discontinued. But I was happy to find that a new version was soon forthcoming and pre-ordered. All was great. Then I built my pedal board. I kept running into the issue that I had a dead spot somewhere. But after checking all my cables it would go away. Bewildered I played on.

It would be a few months later I discovered the pedal previously described, the heart of my new tone, was the center of the issue. So I sent it back for warranty work. The builder chastised me about being more careful when plugging and unplugging (to which I am always very careful, and the board had yet to see a full gig). It was repaired and life went on.

As I would use the pedal on my board, I found I could not fully insert the lava plugs to the pedal would not work, which was okay since it was stationary on the board.

Rebuilding my board this past month found the pedal to be problematic again. And I found the real issue:

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There is a plastic/rubber-like ring in the outside holding the power plug in place but inside is a washer that does not keep the jack from twisting.

Now the more interesting part is the break pictured only occurred so I could try and pull the pedal apart. The white LED (on front) was still showing power but there was no sound output/throughput.

Fortunately my dad, retired, is really good with electronics and has a nice station in his workspace downstairs. I'm going to take this up north with me when I see him over Christmas break and unsolder the potentiometers so I can get it out of the current casing. I plan to put it into a larger box with more space, along with an improved power jack.

I contemplated doing a side hole for a new AC plug, but my concern is clearance of some of the chips that are on board.

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Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

And it wasn't even the unplugging...the barrel of any power supply cable fit so snug that I could twist the plug-jack by turning the power cable, which is very easy to do when moving a pedal.
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Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

There is plenty of space in there to use this type of socket
STB-Vertical-Power-Sockets-Electric-Socket-KM02009.jpg_350x350.jpg


It stays in place a lot better.
 
Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

What is the name of the pedal and the builder so I can avoid this?
 
Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

The previous version which is all Mint green has not succumbed to this issue anywhere that I can find.

If you look at these printed circuit board you will see both the name of the pedal on the left and the name of the builder on the right.


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My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

Hank- said:
There is plenty of space in there to use this type of socket
STB-Vertical-Power-Sockets-Electric-Socket-KM02009.jpg_350x350.jpg


It stays in place a lot better.
Click to expand...

That I will have to get ahold of. It looks far more stable. And if side mounted I could even go to the edge if need be.

and the link in the picture shown was a 404 error online. I left a check next week to see if my local little electronics company has any of these in stock to purchase.
 
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My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

The previous V2 was built better IMO.
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Notice all jacks are sidemounted instead of top mounted.


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My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

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Phase I completed:
Dismounted control trim pots and the other jacks. Only lost 1 ring on the pcb in the process. Remedied it by adding a wire to the end of the board trace.

All in all not bad giving the circumstance. Going to NAMM in January so I'll talk with some builders on Phase II with regards to all around better jacks, trimpots and power connection.
 
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Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

The easy fix on that one would be to change to insulated stranded wire. That's what I would have done rather than go through a complete rehousing. A lock washer would keep the jack from twisting. That would fix it permanently.
 
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Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

As you may have noticed in one of the pictures above, and something I may not have explained fully, if I insert a 1/4 plug all the way into the output jack the pedal would become intermittent. So this issue with the ac jack was the final straw leading to my rehousing project.


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Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

Firebrand said:
As you may have noticed in one of the pictures above, and something I may not have explained fully, if I insert a 1/4 plug all the way into the output jack the pedal would become intermittent. So this issue with the ac jack was the final straw leading to my rehousing project.


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Click to expand...

Gotcha. I'm not a fan of PCB mount jacks. They can be a pain but I do understand why builders use them. Hopefully it all goes well in the project. if you have a meter, use it to check every connection as you get through each phase. It will make life so much easier during the process.
 
Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

Thank you. I normally don't care how things are mounted. I have come to suspect the holes for the jacks are not quite right and are causing undo stress on solder joints when this unit is assembled. I'm probably the only one to run into all of these issues with this pedal, and I refuse to put it in a box on a shelf and forget about it. When it works it does exactly what I want the pedal to do.


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Re: My first ever hate-to-love pedal I've owned

Ended up finding another one where the jacks are side mounted. Bought it. I have a week to check it out so we will see how it goes.


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