3PDT replacement question

djspecialist

I need to replace a couple of footswitches.  I have a few of these, and want to know whether the pins are going to be a pain to solder onto.



On one pedal, the footswitch is mounted in a daughter board.  The existing pins are the ones with holes:



On the other pedal, the connections go directly to the switch - again, onto pins with holes:



Thanks in advance for any help!

ICBM

That's a PCB-mount switch, but you can use it 'free' as well even without wire holes.

You can either loop the wires around the pins before soldering, or if you're being very thorough you can solder them 'endways on' and slide some heatshrink tube down over the pins to make sure they stay secure. In practice, simply soldering them endways is adequate anyway, if your soldering is up to scratch.

Desoldering the existing switch from the PCB can be very difficult without damaging the board. You're often better to carefully destroy the switch in situ using clippers, pliers etc to break it down until the pins are the only things left and can be unsoldered and removed individually, which reduces heating of the board. It's time-consuming but usually better than having to replace the board or patch it up with extra wires after the traces have come off.

Did I say I hate 3PDTs yet?

In the Earthquaker Devices pedal it's nice to see a 3PDT wired more correctly than usual, for once. (Diagonal bypass link wire, not via both poles.)

djspecialist

Thanks @ICBM for the characteristically helpful advice.

I managed to desolder the PCB.  I tried to keep the heating to a minimum, using braid to remove the old solder.  That part was OK, but the wires were so fine that one of them snapped as I was moving the daughter board.  Removing and replacing that turned out to be harder than replacing the switch itself - but happily it's all working now.

I'll try the "endways + heatshrink" approach on the EQD pedal.

Did I say I hate 3PDTs yet?

I think you might have mentioned that at some point ...

djspecialist

Finally got around to replacing the switch on the Warden (soldering end-on, as @ICBM suggested.) I'd forgotten how good this pedal sounds!

Kurtis

Should be easy if you tin everything.