Wiring issue?

[Vice/President]

Hey guys.  I got my Rub a dub reverb working great, I tested it and it was working fine.  I boxed it up last night and it worked fine, and then sat down to play this morning and it's not working.  If I toggle it on and off several times, I'll get sound out of it probably 1/15 tries.  I'm not sure what happened because like I said it was working fine last night.  I'm thinking it could be a bad footswitch but I really have no idea.  The LED comes on every time but usually not the sound. 

Here is a picture of the wiring.

[jimilee]

It sounds like an overheated foot switch or wire leads touching the cable tip or footswitch wires touching. Can you wiggle the wires on the foot switch and see if that helps or remove from the enclosure and see if it works that way? You're practically home free!!!

[DutchMF]

There might be a few issues here: as you mentioned yourself, your switch could be faulty. Also, on your pics, I see some wires that might be touching each other, but that's really hard to tell. Lastly, you might want to try reflowing the solder joinst on the switch, but they do actually look good. Check those things out, you already confirmed the board works, so you're really close!!!

A tip on footswitch wiring: If you connect the three lugs that all go to ground with an L-shaped bit of left over component lead, it's much easier to fit it all in there!

Paul

[rullywowr]

I always recommend connecting the grounds on the jacks as well. This way you aren't relying on the jack nut to make a pressure connection to the enclosure. If one of these is loose it will make your pedal appear doa.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

So many things to point out but.... 

I'd put my money on an overheated 3PDT switch 

[Vice/President]

So many things to point out but.... 

I'd put my money on an overheated 3PDT switch 

If it's an overheated switch does that mean I've gotta get myself a new one? Thanks everyone


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[rullywowr]

Unfortunately yes. Once it's melted it's toast. When doing lugs try to use your iron on a hot setting (if it has one) and work quick. Get in and get out so you don't bake the internals. Better to use more heat and work fast than low heat and slow cool these types of switches.

[Vice/President]

Unfortunately yes. Once it's melted it's toast. When doing lugs try to use your iron on a hot setting (if it has one) and work quick. Get in and get out so you don't bake the internals. Better to use more heat and work fast than low heat and slow cool these types of switches.

I'm gonna try resoldering everything on the switch just in case, hopefully trying using a component lead to connect the grounds to make it a bit tidier. If that fails, I'll order another switch and hopefully we'll be back in business. Would the LED still work with a fried switch? Also, I keep my tip at 700 degrees for soldering components, would you recommend higher for the switch?


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[Govmnt_Lacky]

Unfortunately yes. Once it's melted it's toast. When doing lugs try to use your iron on a hot setting (if it has one) and work quick. Get in and get out so you don't bake the internals. Better to use more heat and work fast than low heat and slow cool these types of switches.

I'm gonna try resoldering everything on the switch just in case, hopefully trying using a component lead to connect the grounds to make it a bit tidier. If that fails, I'll order another switch and hopefully we'll be back in business. Would the LED still work with a fried switch? Also, I keep my tip at 700 degrees for soldering components, would you recommend higher for the switch?


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The LED could work as there are 3 seperate poles on the switch. Any one or two of them could be bad.

As for your iron... I use mine at 700 also but, when I solder onto a 3PDT, I always melt a small bit of solder onto the TINNED AND CLEAN tip (very important that the tip is clean and tinned for proper heat transfer) and when I solder to the lugs, I make sure I am not applying the iron any longer than 3 seconds. If I dont get a good joint in that time, I move on to another lug and come back to that one later. 

[Vice/President]

This helps a lot, thanks for the advice. Hopefully I'll get a build report up soon!

Unfortunately yes. Once it's melted it's toast. When doing lugs try to use your iron on a hot setting (if it has one) and work quick. Get in and get out so you don't bake the internals. Better to use more heat and work fast than low heat and slow cool these types of switches.

I'm gonna try resoldering everything on the switch just in case, hopefully trying using a component lead to connect the grounds to make it a bit tidier. If that fails, I'll order another switch and hopefully we'll be back in business. Would the LED still work with a fried switch? Also, I keep my tip at 700 degrees for soldering components, would you recommend higher for the switch?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The LED could work as there are 3 seperate poles on the switch. Any one or two of them could be bad.

As for your iron... I use mine at 700 also but, when I solder onto a 3PDT, I always melt a small bit of solder onto the TINNED AND CLEAN tip (very important that the tip is clean and tinned for proper heat transfer) and when I solder to the lugs, I make sure I am not applying the iron any longer than 3 seconds. If I dont get a good joint in that time, I move on to another lug and come back to that one later. 

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[davent]

If you over heated it, easy with all those leads, it's possible that all you've done is melted the grease in the switch and its run down and contaminated the electrical contacts. You can disassemble the switch and clean the contacts and it should be good to go again.

[Vice/President]

If you over heated it, easy with all those leads, it's possible that all you've done is melted the grease in the switch and its run down and contaminated the electrical contacts. You can disassemble the switch and clean the contacts and it should be good to go again.

Thanks!!! I'll give this a shot


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[jimilee]

I would try wiggling the wires and maybe remove it from the enclosure before I reheated an already maybe overheated switch.  Do you have bypass? It could just be wiring shorting on something. I did just that earlier today.

[Vice/President]

I would try wiggling the wires and maybe remove it from the enclosure before I reheated an already maybe overheated switch.  Do you have bypass? It could just be wiring shorting on something. I did just that earlier today.

Yes I should have mentioned, I do have bypass.  Maybe there is hope for the switch.

[jimilee]

I would try wiggling the wires and maybe remove it from the enclosure before I reheated an already maybe overheated switch.  Do you have bypass? It could just be wiring shorting on something. I did just that earlier today.

Yes I should have mentioned, I do have bypass.  Maybe there is hope for the switch.

Right, it's probably something simple, just today a jack was shorting against the enclosure, it worked done for 20onutes after I unplugged the cable and plugged it back on, it stopped working. Wiggles some wires and the jack and figured it out. You'll get it.