Fixed my Mold Spore!

[rps-10]

Pretty much a year ago my Snarling Dogs Mold Spore kind of died. The wah still worked and both LEDs in the dogs eyes still lit up when activated, but the ring mod side would kill all sound coming out of the pedal.

It was a sad day as this is my fave fun mental pedal for just sheer noise making and lol moments.

When this happened I had never made myself a pedal, so in the in between timeframe I have made myself a Madbean Karate Shop and a Tremulus Lune clone, both of which worked!
So decided to to look into fixing the mold spore, so by asking around and reading a lot of info here, it would seem the max1044 IC would be the most likely culprit.
They are known to be a weak spot, so started looking for a suitable replacement but a more improved IC solution. No point in replacing a weak componet with the same weak item.

It was suggested to try a TC1044 as a replacement but when I eventually got around to look to buy one they were hard to get hold of without a major minimum buy threshold. Then after an outbust on twitter the chap from North Effects (UK builder) suggested an easily available IC L7660SCPA - it should be the same and work ok. (Mike from MadeByMike also mentioned a 7660 as a replacement ages ago when I asked him about troubleshooting/fixing it)

So last night, I had all the bits and set about with a de-solder pump, wix (first timer de soldered stuff from PCB) and got the max1044 off the board.
Soldered in a DIL socket, just in case and for future swaps if needed. Popped in the L7660SCPA and put it all back together.
Plugged it in and held my breath...

And it worked!!

This was around midnight, so couldn't really blast stuff out. Just used my kids tiny practice amp and some headphones to test. but all is good again 

[jkokura]

Awesome story is awesome!

Jacob

[pryde]

Good for you man. Nice save!

I know the feeling. I fixed a EH holy grail reverb of mine that has been dead for a few years from help on this and some other forums.

[slimtriggers]

Great job!  Fixing one is almost better than the feeling of building from scratch-especially when it's one of your favorite pedals

[rps-10]

Thanks, I guess it was more luck than judgement and a leap of faith. Although I learned something new. De-soldering with wix or a pump is a bit of a black art when trying to get stuff of a PCB.

[atreidesheir]

It is especially awesome because that pedal totally kicks ass.  I love those Charlie Stringer wahs, but they are not reliable.   

[rps-10]

To be honest I do have bit of a soft spot for the old Snarling Dogs pedals. I have one of the original line Fuzz Buzzes somewhere and even that has a dodgy switch on it