Boss going smd

steamabacus

I just read this article at Stinkfoot
http://stinkfoot.se/archives/3203

It appears new versions of the DS-1 and BD-2 now use surface mount technology.

DS-1....




BD-2 new and old....


So, bad news for modders.

The good news, though, is that the pots [misread original article] input jacks, etc are still enclosure mounted and connected by wires to the board. And the (newer) power input socket soldered direct to the board has gone, returning to the old style socket.

I used to be a bit prejudiced against smd (associating it with some cheaper effects that didn't sound great) until I bought a Rothwell Love Squeeze compressor. I was surprised to see smd in that but it sounds superb and is very quiet with regard to background noise.

What do our techie types on here make of this development at Boss?

m_c

It's inevitable. Throughole components are getting harder to source, as it's an expensive way to build anything commercially now.

Danny1969

Anything mass manufactured is generally SMD as then the tape reels of components can be loaded into auto picking auto placing machines and then into the oven
There will be no difference in sound between an SMD or a through hole device as it's only the package that's different. As for working  \ modding SMD boards it's not really a problem when you've learnt some different techniques .... more hot air than soldering in terms of changing components. It's still big stuff compared to working on Tablet PC \ iPad \ phones etc

ICBM

Inevitable - I'm amazed this didn't happen quite a long time ago really, given the amount of hand assembly work there is in a classic Boss pedal it must have been costing them quite a lot. Bad news for modders certainly, but the most commonly modded pedals are not exactly rare and second hand ones aren't going to run out any time soon.

If they do an SMD SD-1, hopefully they don't just transplant the circuit verbatim but actually fix the bypass bleed at the same time...

thermionic

Like @ICBM, I’m just surprised it’s taken this long. My predictions:

- It will hit the modding industry, at least temporarily.
- Used prices will ramp up, as “through-hole” takes on the cachet of “Japan”, “silver screw” and “long dash”.
- A market for through hole replacement PCBs may develop...

Cabicular

If it’s any use to anyone the Black DS1 is still the old design

Danny1969

In that pic it looks like the DC socket is soldered directly to a daughter board which contains what  like a couple of solid caps, probably the voltage divider resistors and then it's passing through the in and out jack to the main PCB .... seems an odd and pointless layout to me ...... with an obvious point of failure. I'm surprised the pots are wired, I would have though looking at that they were vertical mount on the other side of the SMD PCB 

ICBM

It should be less failure-prone than the old design, because if the power jack gets flexed the daughter board can move with it, since it isn't supported in any other way. The old way was prone to cracking the solder joints or lifting the traces.

The new pots aren't wired, they're vertical mount on the main PCB. It shouldn't be an issue as long as they also have a proper chassis bushing.

steamabacus

ICBM said:

The new pots aren't wired, they're vertical mount on the main PCB. It shouldn't be an issue as long as they also have a proper chassis bushing.

Ah, I misread the original article. I'll edit my original post to save confusion.

EricTheWeary

Cabicular said:

If it’s any use to anyone the Black DS1 is still the old design

Didn’t analogman say they’d bought a shed load of those to modify when the analogman chap was interviewed on TPS? I might be conflating things there but I think so? 

thermionic

Interesting that some of Fuzzdog’s kits now use SMD FETs because through hole FETs are becoming hard to source. They’ll be a little trickier but the occasional component shouldn’t be a problem to the experienced solderer.

Sassafras

I'm always a bit disappointed when I discover an SMD circuit board. They look so drab and uninteresting.

JezWynd

How long will it be until they decide the iconic pedal housing is a lot of wasted metal? Perhaps they'll shrink it incrementally like some chocolate bars.

ICBM

steamabacus said:

ICBM said:

The new pots aren't wired, they're vertical mount on the main PCB. It shouldn't be an issue as long as they also have a proper chassis bushing.

Ah, I misread the original article. I'll edit my original post to save confusion.

I also forgot to say that Boss have been PCB-mounting the pots for decades - just on small daughter boards. It's only a very few of the original designs which stuck with wired pots. The difference now is that the main board has been moved there.

TateFX

I'm surprised it's taken this long!

Even at small level I've had to switch to SMD Jfets as the through holes just aren't being made anymore. 

£1.50 for a TO-92 J201 or 20p for the same thing in SMD.....

Winny_Pooh

All that empty space in the smd version just looks odd, like fuzzfaces. Compact used to be a boss, now its a mooer

Danny1969

I had a meeting with a clever guy at a company that offered to manufacture by IEM product I had preciously been making by hand with through hole components, veroboard and all pots and sockets wired off board. This is a fantastically reliable design, there isn't really anything you could do to break it in normal use but as he explained it wasn't possible to build it in that fashion without incurring a lot of labour cost. In SMD production though it was just a matter of putting the tape reels on the loaders and the machine picks the parts, places them on the board and then the board goes through the oven and it's done without any human intervention at all ........... for a high mass manufacture like Boss it must be a no brainer 

I can see a market for transposing SMD opamps and such into through hole DIL casings for modders who don't want to solder at SMD pitch 

m_c

@Danny1969 you can already get various SMD to DIP adapter boards - http://futurlec.com/SMD_Adapters.shtml (plus plenty on eBay). I've got a couple kicking around that I got for breadboarding some chips a couple years ago.

SMD work isn't that bad once you get used to it. My biggest complaint with it, is the solder paste goes off, so instead of having a few pound roll of solder that lasts for years, you get a far more expensive syringe of paste that goes off within a few months.

robinbowes

I wonder if the SMD boards will fit in a 1590A case? Could be interesting... 

ICBM

Winny_Pooh said:

All that empty space in the smd version just looks odd, like fuzzfaces. Compact used to be a boss, now its a mooer

I hope they’re not tempted to make them smaller. The Boss enclosure is perfect. Mini-pedals are crap.