Green muff repair help

Clydesdale · July 05, 2011, 06:02:09 PM

I'm replacing my I/P and O/P jacks on my muff due to me stumbling on the pedal and snapping the jacks away from the board.

Problem is a couple of the lugs that the solder connects to have broken off the board as well!

What is my best method of re-attaching the lug back to the board?

These lugs are very thin and papery and don't look like they will take much more abuse.

Sorry if this is hard to understand, I don't even know if I'm using the right terminology eg. Lug?

Cheers

VOLVO))) · July 05, 2011, 06:29:13 PM

Pics plx.

Hemisaurus · July 05, 2011, 06:31:15 PM

Do the jacks connect directly to the board?

If you break part of the circuit board itself, the best thing to do, would be (if there's space) use a regular jack, like you might use in a guitar, rather than one that mounts to the PCB and solder a wire from the jack directly to the circuit trace, just past where the jack used to connect.

VOLVO))) · July 05, 2011, 06:34:31 PM

Eh, the traces on those pieces of shit wouldn't hold a wire. You'd have to make yourself a hole.

Hemisaurus · July 05, 2011, 06:36:59 PM

No it could work, the jacks are on the trackless side of the PCB, so putting in a regular pair of jacks should be do-able, and hopefully the board will still have enough support, or if you are as fussy as Sunn, here's what to do.

Get a pair of regular jacks, a pin vise, some terminals and some solder.
Remove board.
Remove old jacks.
Drill through the tracks at appropriate spaces.
Punch in terminal pins and solder.
Solder wires from new jacks to terminal pins.

Seriously though, add some decent jacks, run wires, either through the circuit hole of the next component down the line, through the holes that the jack originally went to, or onto the circuit trace itself, and hold the wire down with a blob of silicon caulk.

and remember...

VOLVO))) · July 05, 2011, 07:56:54 PM

Hold, is this the Green Muff with the funky switch?

I know the "black muffs" are only supported by the jacks, there's no board support.

Hemisaurus · July 05, 2011, 08:06:12 PM

I dunno, there's the old Russian green big muff, then theres the green muff, figure if it has PCB mounted jacks, it's probably this beastie, wait for Mr Breweryhorse to chime in

Clydesdale · July 05, 2011, 08:15:37 PM

Yeah it's the green Russian, jacks mounted to the board. Same as the one in the above pic.

Cheers for the info, great response!!

I'm at work now, will give this post a good read when I get home and decide what to do.

I'll try and upload a pic too.

Clydesdale · July 06, 2011, 06:31:57 AM

Ok here is some pics. As you can see its a dogs breakfast!!

You can see in the 3rd pic I have tried to glue a couple of lugs in place so I can mount the jack and soldier. This is just me being impatient and coming up with my own solution. Might work but i doubt it.

In the second pic you can see where the soldier has lifted from the board taking the trace with it.

Anyway Ive done quite a job on it in more ways than one.

I personally would rather use jacks that dont mount to the board.

Anyway thanks again

Hemisaurus · July 06, 2011, 10:06:00 AM

Be careful when gluing a land (pad, whatever) back on, that you don't get glue on top, else you won't be able to solder it, not a worry if you are just gluing the trace.

Hopefully the glue will work, but yes switching to chassis mounted jacks, will hopefully alleviate some of the problem, as having a component mounted on both the PCB and the case, and held in place just by solder puts undue strain on the board, and those solder joints specifically.

OK, a few thoughts occur to me.

The only important lands (solder pads where you solder the component to) are those with traces running to them, the others are just there for structural support, not important if you are switching to chassis mounted jacks
If you are switching to chassis mounted jacks, is there an AC adaptor connector? The original Russian Muffs didn't have one, the worry being that chassis mounted jacks will ground the signal via the chassis, which is OK unless there is an uninsulated (not plastic) power adaptor connector
As the jacks hold that end of the circuit board up, the circuit board will now be flopping about. I'd suggest drilling a couple of holes where the jacks used to be, or close by, somewhere that the is no PCB trace, then you can use a self adhesive circuit board standoff to keep the board up
The input jack socket uses a stereo jack socket, and runs the battery negative to the ring, when you connect a mono jack plug it connects ring to ground and turns the unit on, make sure you get a stereo jack socket for the input jack, it needn't be a switching jack socket, just stereo. You can use a plain old mono jack socket for the output

I'll not get into the milspec way of repairing PCB's, I think the glue should work just fine in this instance.

VOLVO))) · July 06, 2011, 10:15:25 AM

This thread is excellent! Read up, maggots!

Clydesdale · July 06, 2011, 06:07:47 PM

Awesome hemi

The board won't need any additional mounting as it mounted pretty well. It won't be moving anywhere.

There is no AC adaptor input. So that should be ok for chasis mounted jacks?

Also how would I connect the jack wires to the traces? It seems as the solder pads/lands(?) are well connected to the trace. Is it just a matter of soldering straight to the land?
Or snipping the land off and going straight to the trace?

Also is there any chance of a quick diagram on the wiring config for the jack set up?
I'm no good with schematics but made about four nice pedals with basic diagrams.

Hope you understand what Im banging on about here..

Thanks again

Hemisaurus · July 06, 2011, 08:45:10 PM

Yeah, if there's no power adaptor, your fine to use chassis jacks, the input and output jacks both go to the same ground, as does the power (I looked at a schematic)

I'd just solder the wires from the jack to the lands if they are stuck down well, they won't be under the same stresses as they were with the PCB mounted jack, so it shouldn't get loose again.

As to wiring it depends on the type of jack you get, but just try and visualise a plug in the socket, the furthest in from the edge is the tip of the plug, the closest to the edge is the shield, if you look at the traces on the output jack only two have traces running to them, so solder the wire from the tip of the jack socket to the land with the trace furthest in, and solder the wire from the shield or ground to the other trace.

On the input jack you've got 3 terminals tip, ring and shield, so connect tip to the furthest in land with a trace, the ring to the middle one with a trace, and the shield to the one closest to the edge.

Ignore all the lands that don't have traces running to them, they were just there for support.

Clydesdale · July 07, 2011, 06:22:46 PM

Ok got the job done, fired it up sounds great.

Only thing is one of the landings separated from the trace. So I lifted some trace and ran the wire straight to the trace. Probably not the right thing to do? But it feels secure.

Anyway I'll upload a pic after work tonight and you can tell me if my patch up job is going to work out?

Cheers

Hemisaurus · July 07, 2011, 07:25:25 PM

Sounds OK, to me, but put a blob of silicon caulk, or hot glue (I use caulk myself) over both thebwire and the trace, make it a nice big blob to hold that down good.

Clydesdale · July 22, 2011, 11:04:21 PM

Hey Hemi

Cheers for your help with getting this muff back up and going! I really appreciate your help.

All is good but I cant help but think the tone has changed a bit and the reliability of it is a worry sometimes.

I might get a GGG muff kit soon as a back up.