Sunking failure, never give your pedals to old school gits!

[Cortexturizer]

Yeah, I feel the name of the topic is a little harsh but even that makes me release some anger right now...
Okay, so I gave my beautiful cherished Sunking that all of you loved, to a very famous guitarist from my country, and he, being an old school dude as he is [very very cool dude], he killed it immideately. (

He is too embarassed to admit, but I know that he tried every adapter he had in his house, tried other polarities and whatnot, I know he did haha. Even though I told him to use whatever he uses to power his Boss pedals.

Now my cherished baby is dead, and what's crazy is that when I remove all the off board wiring, I still have the 9V rail and ground connected. Prior to that, I noticed that the battery was getting CRAZY hot, so everything suggests some capacitor damage. Or maybe it's the Zener? I don't know, I would hate to tear apart a pedal that I was building so meticously and made the tidiest effort so far with it. So I would like to heat your opinions of what might be wrong, so that I could unsolder only a few components.

I already tried removing C17, in an effort to see whether it would disconnect the 9V from the ground but it didn't. So that one is ok.

So remember, all off board wiring is removed, and I still have a populated board with the power rails connected. What could be the cause for this? Killed Zener? Some other electrolytic died? Who knows...

Arrrrrgh, I played it today at rehearsal and it slayed, and here I am with a dead pedal. Damn you vintage dudes with the "I'm gonna try every adapter I have in the house even the one that powers my daughter's laptop" attitude!

Cheers guys!

[midwayfair]

It's the Zener, and probably the charge pump.

If he fed it the wrong polarity, the zener would overload and blow. If he fed it too much voltage, the zener would blow and THEN it would kill the chip.

Replace the Zener first; then replace the chip.

And make him pay for it, no matter how cool of a mate he is.

[Hangingmonkey]

Once upon a time, i fed my boneyard 12 or 15v by accident and it killed it. Turned out the zener blow (it started glowing with the power plugged in and i burnt my finger).  I replaced it and it worked fine.

[whitebread47]

Like the others have said, I'd start with the zener.  Before I got into building, I bought a Klone over on TGP.  Well, I hadn't a power supply at the time and there was no battery snap, so I searched for power supplies that might work and plugged in a 9v AC adapter.  It did not like that. 

The builder offered to fix it for cost of shipping and some parts.  All that had to be replaced were the zener and charge pump IIRC.

[Cortexturizer]

Yep, just the Zener it was. It was the first thing that I wanted to try as well but you know...you open your pedal and it's your proudest wiring moment and then you want to unsolder only one component Fortunately it was only the Zener, no need to change the charge pump. Yeah!

I'm trippin' that the sound is slightly different but I keep telling to myself that it's gotta be some studip psychological trauma or something hehe. Will know for sure at the next rehearsal, but I reckon that I'm totally trippin' this one hehe.

Cheers people!

[jimilee]

Great news!

[ch1naski]

Yep, just the Zener it was. It was the first thing that I wanted to try as well but you know...you open your pedal and it's your proudest wiring moment and then you want to unsolder only one component Fortunately it was only the Zener, no need to change the charge pump. Yeah!

I'm trippin' that the sound is slightly different but I keep telling to myself that it's gotta be some studip psychological trauma or something hehe. Will know for sure at the next rehearsal, but I reckon that I'm totally trippin' this one hehe.

Cheers people!

I'm sure it's all in your head, the same thing happens to me.

  The zener saved you, all is well!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[Cortexturizer]

Yeah, thank you guys for the support! I have really grown to love that pedal, I've stopped building drives to see whether I will like them and then throw away the vero/pcb as I used to do. That's why I was particularly hit with this pedal failure But everything is well and I am probably trippin' the sound difference.

[oldhousescott]

Same thing happened to me with a vero build Klone for a buddy. I didn't leave room for a battery, and I'm sure he just plugged in the wrong adapter. Zapped the zener. I rebuilt it, and added a 1N5818 in series with the positive supply terminal. Yeah, it drops half a volt of the V+, but I figure, with the charge pump, I've got a little headroom to spare.