DOD pots and switch

[Marbles]

Hey there,

I was wondering: A friend of mine has the almighty DOD Flashback fuzz.. well, not so almighty in his (or my) opinion, so he said: If you can do something with it, be my guest.

So, I though about putting a Great Destroyer or another fuzz in there (don't know how much space I'll have) , but I don't know the size of the pots.. Are those 12mm in there? Or even smaller?

Is this do-able anyway? I can imagine having problems with replacing (or rewiring) the powersupply, and I have no idea how the switch works to be honest....

Anyone did this before?

[Beaker]

 That's the problem with all these big brand pedals - DOD, Boss, Ibanez, Danelectro, Arion etc. They are all the same in that they have their own proprietry switching systems which are usually clickless. The actual parts that you step on are literally, the weak link in the chain - crappy plastic or metal shell material that is stupidly fragile.

Once the switch breaks you have next to no chance of repairing them, unless you have another pedal with a non-broken switch that you can cannibalise. There simply is no room  to replace it with the kind of switches we tend to use.

I have that very problem myself. I recently got given a Ibanez 6/10 stage phaser with a completely broken footswitch, and a broken stage selector switch. I pulled it out of the enclosure, and found that the footswitch could easily be replaced with a Tayda Carling type momentary footswitch. I easily replaced the stage switch with a SPST on/on switch, on flying leads, and hey presto - a perfectly working pedal, that sounds awesome.

Problem is, that there is now way on earth to shoe horn it all back in, so I am now looking at a rehousing project. This thing has a double decker PCB, with the bottom one too long to fit in a B box let alone a BB.

So now I am going to have to put a standard Ibanez/Boss sized pedal into a 1590D! Talk about rediculous.

Also the old pedal shell is now junk, as there is nowhere to fit a standard stomp switch, so I can't use it to house anything else!

DOH!

[Marbles]

Ah that's crap, a 1590D.. such a shame..

Thanks for your clear answer. Too bad though. I have used them in the past myself ofcourse, but never understood the mechanics of those switches you know? I never ever opened them up.
The pots they have seemed to be normal, and i guess I had hoped that the switching could somehow be taking apart from the old pedal and used in the new one..
Which is kind of a naive thought I guess. I should've figured that those switching systems are in the pcb of the effect, and not something apart from the effect that could be used on a new one..

Oh well, from your story i'm not even going to try to put a 3pdt in it instead haha

Thanks!  

[Travis]

When a 1590B costs $5 from Tayda this just doesn't make sense IMO

With that said you shouldn't have a problem with the pots or DC jack. The pots in all my DOD pedals are 16mm, and the hole for the DC jack can be drilled out or you can drill a new hole if there's no space.

For the footswitch, I would take out the little switch that's in there and drill the hole out. If a normal 3PDT won't fit, one of those alpha compact 3PDTs might

Just buy a 1590B or something :p

[Silver Blues]

Actually, I believe the switching used in Boss and perhaps Ibanez pedals is a CMOS-based soft-latch actuated by something similar to a Cherry MX type switch that's extremely widely used for mechanical keyboards, which are actually quite durable and relatively widely available. You'd probably be able to simply replace it with one of these. There are a large variety of different types of these switch so you'd probably want to use a Black or a Linear Grey (as an aside, if anyone needs any help with mechanical keyboards I'm your guy ).

[Travis]

I forgot to mention that smallbear sells two different types of switches used by DOD. Just go to smallbear and search "DOD" and you'll see them

And yeah all of the DODs that I have use a HCF4007UBE for switching. Pretty sure boss uses JFET switching and a different type of switch

[Beaker]

So the Cherry MX switches are basically computer keyboard push button switches?

I don't have an issue with the strength/lifespan of the actual switches themselves in these pedals, it's the plastic bit your foot comes into contact with that fails. On the Ibanez pedal I have, the footswitch acctuator is (or was) a shitty piece of moulded plastic, that doubles as the battery cover, on a springed hinge for battery removal. Talk about asking for trouble.

[Marbles]

You are right. I thought: If I can wire the existing switch AND use the enclosure, it would save almost 10 euros (I'm from Holland, bit more expensive and I believe the term 'going dutch' has something to do with being cheap haha).
But seriously, i thought: If I can use the existing stuff, it will cost me 5 euros to make it into something awesome. But yeah, I guess I'll just convince him to use it as a paperweight and have me make something from scratch haha.

To be honest I don't hate boss switches. I have never had one failing me yet (knock on wood). Easier to press 2 pedals at a time, no precision stomping when not sober.. what's not to like? :D
Plus, not the most popular opinion, but I like some of Boss's pedals as well.. The flanger, tremolo, dd delays, rv's.. Ibanez delay.. But hey, that's a whole other discussion ;)

Thanks for the replies. But I feel that I will stick to the more simpler switching...

[Silver Blues]

Beaker wrote

So the Cherry MX switches are basically computer keyboard push button switches?

That's precisely what they are, this was their intended application. After looking into it a bit more, one can actually simply purchase the exact replacement switch which may solve some people's problems.

But for comparison's sake the Boss switch looks like this:


While a Cherry MX Black looks like this:


Main functional difference being that the Boss switch has a longer stem.