Strymon Blue Sky - very early version mechanical repair
Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2024 12:39 pm
I picked up a non-working Strymon Blue Sky V1. Very early - the boards are marked 2009.
The "Mix" pot had been smashed - very common on Strymon pedals. One good drop onto the knob and the pot is toast.
The footswitches were acting weird.
Replaced the mix pot - this is straightforward and the part is available form Strymon.
The switches, however, are non-standard. I'm guessing that these very early versions had a lot of mechanical problems so Strymon changed to the current solderless switches in the 2010's.
One of the switches disintegrated when I dismantled the pedal. Seemed straightforward. But no. Replacement switches made things worse.
2 days of headscratching later... and this is what is happening.
The foot switches are soldered directly to the main board. This is 100% a no-no. Every time you step on the switch the metal housing flexes just a little and over time the circuit board is damaged.
What was happening in my pedal was the "plate through" from the front to back of the board had been damaged by the flexing, and the connectivity was lost, even with the new switch soldered in.
Even worse, when I tried to inspect and fix the problem, some of the plate-through copper cylinders simply fell out.
When this happens, the circuit is broken (no connection between the top and bottom of the board), and things stop working.
. .
.
The fix is to provide a jumper from top to bottom of the board to reestablish the connection.
The pic below is my temporary fix to confirm the pedal actually works. It does. Now I just need to make the jumpers and put the pedal back together.
.
The "Mix" pot had been smashed - very common on Strymon pedals. One good drop onto the knob and the pot is toast.
The footswitches were acting weird.
Replaced the mix pot - this is straightforward and the part is available form Strymon.
The switches, however, are non-standard. I'm guessing that these very early versions had a lot of mechanical problems so Strymon changed to the current solderless switches in the 2010's.
One of the switches disintegrated when I dismantled the pedal. Seemed straightforward. But no. Replacement switches made things worse.
2 days of headscratching later... and this is what is happening.
The foot switches are soldered directly to the main board. This is 100% a no-no. Every time you step on the switch the metal housing flexes just a little and over time the circuit board is damaged.
What was happening in my pedal was the "plate through" from the front to back of the board had been damaged by the flexing, and the connectivity was lost, even with the new switch soldered in.
Even worse, when I tried to inspect and fix the problem, some of the plate-through copper cylinders simply fell out.
When this happens, the circuit is broken (no connection between the top and bottom of the board), and things stop working.
. .
.
The fix is to provide a jumper from top to bottom of the board to reestablish the connection.
The pic below is my temporary fix to confirm the pedal actually works. It does. Now I just need to make the jumpers and put the pedal back together.
.