Ross distortion

[funky see]

   
Ross Distortion.
« on: July 08, 2013, 05:40:50 PM »

Hey, I found this pedal at a yard sale. The guy i bought it from said he's had it since the late 70's. He sold it to me for $5 and said it was broken. I've attached some pics of it including a pic of the loose black wire I found. Also, there is a hole for an external power supply? Anybody know where that black wire goes (it's the 3 wire of 4 on the bottom of the board. are there any mods? I thought it would be a great experiment while I wait for all my parts to come in on my Bumblebee.

nick    




top.jpg (22.25 KB, 533x640 - viewed 9 times.)

innards.jpg (29.73 KB, 468x640 - viewed 18 times.)

power?.jpg (16.62 KB, 640x427 - viewed 10 times.)

[oldhousescott]

You'll want to suss out the power, some of those Ross pedals used positive ground setups (at least the phaser did IIRC).

[funky see]

Hi, I'm not getting a lot of replies on my question. Have I committed some sort of forum faux pas?

nick

[hammerheadmusicman]

Is it the earth wire for the jack on the right, there only seems to be one wire going to it.. maybe :/

[jimilee]

Where does the ground wire for the battery go? It does look like the earth wire from the pcb.

[oldhousescott]

Yeah, I'd say ground wire for the PCB. It should go to the ground lug (sleeve connection) on the input jack -- the jack on the left in your picture.

Looking at pictures on the web, there used to be a 1/8" DC jack in that empty hole. Previous owner must have modified it to only work on battery power. There's no power protection diode, so it may have been blown up once already and removing the jack prevented that happening again.

[funky see]

Thanks so much. Is it an easy fix, or should I just leave it as battery powered? I'm not even getting a hum out of it now so maybe I should address getting sound out of it first?

Nick

[jkokura]

Have you seen the tech help thread? There are lots of good tips there, and they apply to that pedal as much as any DIY pedal.

Also, what tools can you work with? Do you have an Audio Probe? A Multi Meter?

Jacob

[Govmnt_Lacky]

That BLACK wire that you are referring to is most likely the GROUND wire for the PCB. It will connect to the Ring or Sleeve of the INPUT jack (on battery power).

Look at your Input jack. It SHOULD have 3 contacts on it. One is for the TIP of the jack which is where your guitar signal comes in. Another is the RING and this is where the BATTER SNAP BLACK WIRE goes to. The third is the SLEEVE and this is where the PCB BLACK WIRE (your broken wire) goes to.

Hope this helps 

[funky see]

You guys rock! I'm gonna work on it soon. I'm in the north east and my basement/studio/work area is currently under water so I'm guessing over the weekend.

Thanks again,

Nick

[billstein]

Is the power jack even there? If you look at the bottom picture it says power and there is a hole. If you look at the middle picture there is the hole under his finger but nothing is there.

[oldhousescott]

Here's a pic of one with the DC jack. Looks like a 1/8" mini to me.

[diablochris6]

I have one of these. My dad bought it new, and then I took it from him when I was a teen.  I have the box and sticker that camewith it. I would crack mine open and let you know, but it is stashed in a box in my closet somewhere (My wife thought it would be a good idea to have a nursery instead of a music room.  Who knew?). From memory, I would have to agree with the previous posters that it is a ground wire to the input jack.

The Ross distortion is an interesting pedal. Wooly for a distortion, not wooly enough for a monstrous fuzz tone. It will suck tons of tone though when off. The original jack is weird by today's standards. If you want to put a new one in, go for a more contemporary jack, but check on the polarity first.

[RobA]

In case you haven't seen this yet, http://www.home-wrecker.com/ross.html. I don't know how useful it'll be for your problem, but there's a couple of photos, a schematic, and even a pcb layout for it. There's also a hint on how to remove the pots.

Looking at the schematic, it looks very close to an MXR Distortion+. Interesting.

[funky see]

You guys are so helpful. Yes, for some reason the power jack is missing? Ad I bet that black mystery wire was where it should be soldered. I'm getting nada sound out of it when the pedal is switched on. I'm gonna mess around with it learn a bit about soldering and the basics of deconstruction. I hope to get something out of messing with it maybe even some nasty distortion.

Thanks,

Nick