Another Vintage Boss Question

UnclePsychosis

Picked up a battered Boss Ph-2 from eBay. My OCD is particularly enjoying the rainbow of colours on my board. 

Question one: does this muck on the pads or the fact the back panel is missing off the PSU connection create any cause for concern? (I'm guessing not). 

Secondly, the footswitch has no resistance to it: it works fine but there's no stiffness, unlike my more modern Boss pedals. Is there a fix for this? 

Annoyingly I now have two Boss ACA type pedals. Perhaps time to get an Isolated 12V supply  

thermionic

That's a replacement power socket. As it's already been messed about with, myself, I would just jumper the relevant diode and resistor so that it works with a 9V supply.

The resistance in the footswitch would be from the spring I guess. Is it missing?

ICBM

The muck on the pads is fine, and the back panel isn't missing from the power socket, it's been badly bodged with a type that doesn't fit and drilled… it looks like it might not be possible to fit a second bolt where it should be, but you might be able to if you mount the socket the other way up?

If you're running them on a daisy-chain you don't need to worry about the ACA adaptor. If you want to use an individual 9V supply, connect - I think! but check where the wires go to, it should be the DC jack tip and the input jack ring - pads 6 and 7 together.

Is the foot pedal spring missing or bent out of the right place?

UnclePsychosis

Thanks guys. 

I'm daisy chaining just now so everything works---need to check I don't have any noise issues at volume though. 

Slightly miffed about the condition of the pedal to be honest - the battery snap is broken and you guys tell me the power connection is a badly fitted replacement. Guess that's what I get for taking a chance on a "heavily gigged" pedal with no decent pics. 

Sounds great though, so that's something. 

JezWynd

Lack of treadle resistance can be cured -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Boss-Pedal-Coil-Spring-/391493719914?hash=item5b26d8176a:g:N0YAAMXQS6pRuGiN

UnclePsychosis

The spring is in there: probably just needs replaced. £6 for  a spring seems a bit much though! 

ICBM

UnclePsychosis said:

The spring is in there: probably just needs replaced. £6 for  a spring seems a bit much though! 

I have some spare ones. You can have one for free!

stickyfiddle

The presence of that MXR is making me itch. You need to get an OD-1, SD-1, or maybe even a PW-2

english_bob

stickyfiddle said:

The presence of that MXR is making me itch. You need to get an OD-1, SD-1, or maybe even a PW-2

See, now I've looked up the PW-2 (Power Driver) and seen that the PW-3 is a wah pedal and I'm all disquieted and shit.

It's like OCD "pay it forward".

JezWynd

UnclePsychosis said:

The spring is in there: probably just needs replaced. £6 for  a spring seems a bit much though! 

I'm sure you could source a generic, though I don't know how you spec a spring. Diameter and length obviously, but how do you specify the 'springyness'? ICBM's kind offer seems like the best solution.

UnclePsychosis

stickyfiddle said:

The presence of that MXR is making me itch. You need to get an OD-1, SD-1, or maybe even a PW-2

---I know. 

The annoying thing is that 1) I bloody love how the Dist+ sounds and 2) I'm not sure another Boss pedal would physically fit...

Still...it would look "right"... Help! 

UnclePsychosis

Very kind of you @icbm I will send you a message. 

Thanks 

UnclePsychosis

I've gone a bit vintage boss *-2 series mad recently. Just picked up something else that I know ICBM will definitely approve of. 

andyoz

stickyfiddle said:

The presence of that MXR is making me itch. You need to get an OD-1, SD-1, or maybe even a PW-2

What about a BF-1

Grunfeld

UnclePsychosis said:
Annoyingly I now have two Boss ACA type pedals. Perhaps time to get an Isolated 12V supply  
[Photo of a board with a CE-2!]

I've just checked the CE-2 on my board. 
You know, the one I've been running on 9v for a year or two.
It says "ACA only."
Is this why the LED is a bit dim?
Would it sound better at 12v?
What would you do?

UnclePsychosis

Grunfeld said:

UnclePsychosis said:
Annoyingly I now have two Boss ACA type pedals. Perhaps time to get an Isolated 12V supply  
[Photo of a board with a CE-2!]

I've just checked the CE-2 on my board. 
You know, the one I've been running on 9v for a year or two.
It says "ACA only."
Is this why the LED is a bit dim?
Would it sound better at 12v?
What would you do?

Is it an isolated 9V? In that case it will be why its dim. 

Because of the way Boss implemented the ACA power circuit you can daisy chain an ACA pedal alongside "normal" 9V pedals ("PSA" in Boss speak) and it will work absolutely fine (with full brightness LED and normal circuit operation). 

Explanations:

http://stinkfoot.se/archives/726
http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/107213/boss-aca-power

You can also easily modify an ACA pedal to accept standard 9V. 

ICBM

The light on my CE-2 is quite dim too, either on a battery or on the ACA supply as well as on a daisy-chain.

What's the other pedal you've bought?

thermionic

When I modded ny CE-2 I put a blue LED in (because chorus is blue, right?) and changed the value of the current limiting resistor to make it a little brighter. I also shorted the 12v-9V diode & resistor. My recollection was that the LED wasn't turning on properly on a 9V supply and with a PSA pedal either side.

Grunfeld

UnclePsychosis said:

Is it an isolated 9V? In that case it will be why its dim. 
....
You can also easily modify an ACA pedal to accept standard 9V. 

Yes, isolated power from a Cioks DC-5.
However, I've got a Polytune on there and maybe if I daisy chain the CE-2 from that it will do the "daisy chain thing."
And while I read the mod, and guess it's easy, I'd qualify that to an "easy if you know how."  Which I don't!
I don't really know what I'm doing and I don't know how to use a soldering iron.  (But hey, I learnt how to do other stuff!)
I'll try the daisy chain.  Cheers for the info.

UnclePsychosis

ICBM said:

The light on my CE-2 is quite dim too, either on a battery or on the ACA supply as well as on a daisy-chain.

What's the other pedal you've bought?

ICBM said:

The light on my CE-2 is quite dim too, either on a battery or on the ACA supply as well as on a daisy-chain.

What's the other pedal you've bought?

-I'll give you a clue. It's initials are DF and it's a *-2 series ;-) :-D

steamabacus

You can get replacement power sockets that slot right into those old Boss pedals - either from RolandUK spares (takes a while to ship over, if memory serves) or from Banzai Music in Germany where I bought some a few years ago. I've replaced two of them on my own pedals. I might even have a spare one knocking about in my spares box if you're interested?