Fixing an RV-5?

[laurie]

What I normally do in these situations is wait for the same pedal to come along that has been destroyed physically (pot shafts broken, knobs missing, case banged-up, etc.) and swap the good guts from the broken case into your pedal.

Not a perfect solution, but gives a sense of satisfaction.

[Pepe]

What about the quartz (X1)? Is the function of it already confirmed by the previous tests? Is this what you mean with "oscillator crystal"? I once had a multi effects pedal with a faulty quartz and after replacing it the pedal worked like new again. Such a quartz component is cheap and I would replace it and try my luck.

[laurie]

What about the quartz (X1)? Is the function of it already confirmed by the previous tests? Is this what you mean with "oscillator crystal"? I once had a multi effects pedal with a faulty quartz and after replacing it the pedal worked like new again. Such a quartz component is cheap and I would replace it and try my luck.

Yes it is what I mean. Can't hurt to change it (but I don't hold much hope that it would fix it).

[sirlemonhead]

I replaced X1 and there's been no change at all unfortunately.

Time to call an end to this endeavour I guess, unless there's anything else worth considering

[laurie]

It's worse than that "he's dead Jim"...

I stand by my thoughts about swapping the guts from a cosmetically damaged one.

[sirlemonhead]

Cool, I'll keep an eye out for a beat up one Sure, I had fun anyway trying to figure this thing out with your help once again. Thanks!

[Jeanlxs]

Hello Sirlemonhead. I know it's been a few years since your post. I had a problem identical to yours on the rv5 and I managed to solve it. The capacitors that are in conjunction with X1 (c62 and c63) were shorted, so the crystal doesn't oscillate and the CPU doesn't work. I replaced the two capacitors on mine, and it worked perfectly.
Sorry, I'm from Brazil and I don't speak English. I'm writing this using Google Translate.

[sirlemonhead]

Hi!

That's great that you managed to fix your pedal! I still have my broken RV-5 so I will check those capacitors that you mentioned.

Thanks for adding this information - If it doesn't fix mine, it might help someone else in the future who finds this post

[sirlemonhead]

Uuuuuuuuuh..............Right. So.

Boredom struck so I decided to pop the RV-5 open again and have a tinker, knowing it was utterly in vain.

Last time I'd been at it, I had obviously taken the PCB and jacks out of the enclosure, so one was slightly loose. I finger tightened it back up. I had the back panel off before I realised I couldn't remember what the symptoms of the issue actually was. Did the LED even light up? I couldn't remember.

I plugged it into my Boss power supply with no Input jack connected and strangely, the LED went on. Is that an RV-5 oddity?

Anyways, plugged in an output cable and heard a noise. Grand says I, that's fairly normal. Onwards! I plugged in an Input jack, the cable from my guitar. No sound, of course. Rolled up the volume pot on the guitar... Could hear something. What? ... gave the strings a strum with my foot (the guitar was on the floor!).... wait, what? I can hear amp output. A reverby sounding output.

It's working. The pedal seems to be working utterly without issue now as far as I can tell. It's been sat in a box most of the last 6 years apart from last year when I prodded c62 and c63 with a multimeter and confirmed they weren't shorting, and the thing still wasn't working then.

I'm looking at it now annoyed at myself that I seemed to have sliiightly scuffed up the nice black paint on the control panel when I was trying to remove the nuts around the control knobs. It's otherwise flawless looking and I had bought it with the box and manual for about £40.

I'm afraid to unplug it now...

[Pepe]

I plugged it into my Boss power supply with no Input jack connected and strangely, the LED went on. Is that an RV-5 oddity?

This is the normal behaviour of the RV-5, this is also described on the first pages of the manual. Maybe that was done, because the pedal can also be used with a plug connected to input B only, resulting in creating pure effect sound, without the direct signal.