broken fender blender advice - PICS NOW UPLOADED

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 10:47 am

hiya guys my local music shop has a fender belnder which is bust at the moment. smelling a money-wasting-disaster/opportunity for a bargain (delete where neccesary) ive just spoken to them on the phone to see if they'll sell it "as seen" to see if i could have a go at getting it in working condition. at the mo im waiting for them to get back to me with a price for it.

as some may know im pretty new to building pedals and ive been looking for an opportunity to debug/fix something to help build my chops and the FB is one of my all time favourite pedals but ive got a sneaky feeling its way outta my league

what i want to know is

is it worth it?
any tips going about the job?
advice etc

the RRP that was on it was Â£80. i think if they come back with anything half that or below (possibly wishful thinking) id struggle to say no!

thanks in advance

ben

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 11:36 am

theyve just rung me up and i can have it for Â£35

worth it?

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:01 pm

probably.

could be something as simple as resoldering the switch.

if its truely shagged you get a cool box the rehouse another pedal.

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:21 pm

Johno wrote:probably.

if its truely shagged you get a cool box the rehouse another pedal.

hahaha thanks

deffo gonna go for it. still need any tips/help if anyone wants to jump in

johnnyseven · Post by **johnnyseven** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:27 pm

Any idea what it is exactly that the problem is?

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:38 pm

no, the shop dont have a clue and i didnt think to ask if i could have a sneaky look on saturday when i went in. the idea only struck me in the car on theway home.

like you say if its something small im quids in. i know its "only" 35 quid but at the mo thats quite a bit of cash to me. time or money for parts isnt so much of an issue my only fear is buying it and never getting anything out of it.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:57 pm

Take a bunch of hi res photos with good light and we might be able to help you figure out what's wrong. A multimeter would really help also so you can look into whether the footswitch is working etc/

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:07 pm

thanks mike. will do. its actually your demo of the one you knocked up that made me want one in the first place!

"i warn you, its properly nuts this thing" still laugh at that line!

thanks everyone

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:10 am

to anyone still looking at this. im nipping over to pick it up tonight.

obviously im buying it "sold as seen." Do you think it'd be cheeky/out of order for me to ask if i could open it up and see if theres anything obviously beyond repair or not worth the hassle.

is there anything i should look for?

thanks

Post by **Mike** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:50 am

I think you're well within your rights.

Check nothing is missing for starters.

Look for stray wires, burnt components etc.

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:31 pm

So, I've got it home. It looks BRAND new. No signs of wear, nothing. Inside looks pristine with nothing obvious jumping out at me.

It passes straight signal and is audible when engaged but only with my amp MAXED and even then you can barely hear it. I'm just scouting around (blindly!) with my multimeter randomly checking components at the mo. I will try and get photos up asap.

Any hints peoples?

Thanks

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 9:40 pm

Tone Boost Jack

Tone Boost Switch and wiring

Bypass Switch and wiring

Upside down view of bypass switch

Whole Board

Another whole board

so now i realise how little i understand!

been having a dick around with my audio probe. the only thing that seems odd to me so far is the white lead/wire which carries what i'm presuming is the input signal OUT of the bypass switch doesn't seem to giving anything out when messing around there with the audio probe. also using the probe on the board there doesn't seem to be anything coming through at any point? hence me concentrating my investigations around the input and bypass switch

thanks for any help. MUCH appreciated

the_other_Adam · Post by **the_other_Adam** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 4:23 pm

Benmurray85 wrote:So, I've got it home. It looks BRAND new. No signs of wear, nothing. Inside looks pristine with nothing obvious jumping out at me.

It passes straight signal and is audible when engaged but only with my amp MAXED and even then you can barely hear it. I'm just scouting around (blindly!) with my multimeter randomly checking components at the mo. I will try and get photos up asap.

Any hints peoples?

Thanks

From this I'm going to take a wild guess that it could be a broken jack...only because this stuck in my head. The other day I was playing and my blender did the exact some thing, sounded super quiet, at first I thought maybe a dead battery, but when I leaned down to check it out, I didn't get the input cable plugged all the way in, so the center pin wasn't contacting. So if it's got a damaged jack it could be doing what's causing it. Of course ymmv

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 5:47 pm

IDIOT ALERT

So the reason i wasn't getting any results on the board was because I hadnt engaged the bloody effect! Idiot! It's actually a lot more confusing than you think when there's no LED activation light.

There's is constant signal throughout the unit and the only time the sound dips down is at the White wire coming from the tone boost footswitch. Red wire and black wire both have the "correct" sound/volume/signal etc but the White one is where it dies

could the footswitch be bust? I always thought they were pretty robust?

Also as you can see in the pics my tone boost switch is wired differently to mikes posted example. Is this right?

Thanks

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:20 pm

I was going to suggest a bad switch. I've found those "X type" switches aren't the most reliable. I used to use them a lot because they were cheaper but I found I was replacing them more often than I thought I should be.

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:43 pm

Ok then. What type of switch would you recommend?

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:57 pm

The common blue type of switches are better than these in my opinion. Carling switches are good also but usually a little more expensive.

rodvonbon · Post by **rodvonbon** » Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:15 am

Before you go replacing switches, if I were you, I'd take my multimeter and run it across the switch and check for continuity and resistance. There's no point in replacing parts on a guess or hunch. If you find a bad connection, use a piece of spare wire to bypass the switch and see if that gets you any results. This can all be done without unsoldering anything and if it doesn't work out, no harm/no foul.

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Sun Dec 25, 2011 1:41 am

You can also hook up the input of the board directly to the input jack and the output of the board directly up to the output jack. This will take the bypass switch out of the equation.
You can also short the middle lug of the other switch to one outside lug to take that switch out of the equation to see if the pedal works without the switches.

Normally I wouldn't recommend blindly swapping out switches but I really hate those X type switches so I always just change them out. You don't have to. That's just me.

LaceSensor · Post by **LaceSensor** » Fri Dec 30, 2011 8:29 pm

If you don't fix it dibs on taking it off your hands.