Boss CE-2 dead - help!

[dculotta]

Hey all,

This is my first time posting, and let me say in advance that any advice is much appreciated!

I was checking out some of my dad's gear awhile ago (he's got so much cool stuff squirreled away I don't even ask anymore) and ran across a black label Boss CE-2 MIJ chorus pedal. When I put in a battery I got the LED, plus an essentially clean signal with just a hint of change when you turned the pots back and forth, but nothing resembling a chorus effect. While visiting for Christmas I checked it out again, and now I get the LED but no sound or reaction when tweaking the pots. I decided to take it home and see if I could get it working again.

I wanted to ask if anyone has ideas on where to start the trouble-shooting process based on the description above. My initial idea is to change out the pots, since they somewhat worked before but no longer do. After that I'm sort of lost for ideas (aside from assuring that nothing's shorting, jacks are good, etc.). I can send photos but everything seems good on the (complex) board, no obvious cold solder joints or shorts. I also have a schematic if that helps any.

Hope someone has some ideas. I know its not much info to go off of but I'm really just looking for starting points. I can provide any details necessary if they'll help. Experience wise I've built pedals and simple amps, an dam fairly handy with an iron.

Again, thanks in advance! I hope we can get this thing singing again.

[ashcatlt]

Welcome aboard!

I have failed to fix several DOD pedals, but never really looked inside a Boss. The schematic is available around the web, though, I'm sure.

#1 - Don't "fix" anything till you know what's broken!

#B - You need an audio probe - half of a guitar cable with a largish capacitor connected to the inside conductor. Plug it into an amp, connect the shield braid to the pedal's ground, and poke around with the free end of the capacitor, following the signal path, till you find the last place you can hear it, which leads us to...

III - You really want to get some alligator clip jumper wire things. Use to connect the shield of the audio probe to ground, and whatever else. It's a lot easier than working with bare wires most of the time.

4 - If you can find something which will make sound through the pedal without your having to touch it, it would be nice. Sucks trying to strum and probe at the same time! A keyboard, an mp3 player, even your computer's soundcard could work with the right adapter cable.

Oh, you also want a halfway decent multimeter which will at least read resistance and DC voltage.

[sumgai]

duclotta,

Hi, and welcome to The NutzHouse!


Do what ash suggests above, but first..... freshen up each and every solder joint you can find. Chances are good that one of them, probably one of the pot terminal joints, has gone south. If there's any brown flaky stuff, or if you can wiggle something the least little bit, it's a bad joint, no question about it. They should be somewhat uniform in color, whether shiny or a bit dull, even after all these years.

Have some solder on hand to augment what you're touching up. A truly thorough job would be to remove all previous solder, and start over, but I think that's a bit of overkill. This is just a quick-and-dirty repair job, not an overhaul.

HTH



sumgai

[dculotta]

Thanks so much guys. I'll start using those suggestions (looking for cold joints + signal tracing was what I was thinking as well). Will post an update when I find the culprit. Thanks again!