boss ds-1 switch debounce (?) glitch

[fuzzranger]

Hi everyone, I'm not totally sure if I'm posting in the right section, but I think I would call this a digital question.. My friend gave me a boss ds-1 that he said didn't work anymore, so I took it apart to see what was up. No parts looked obviously damaged and solder joints all looked good to my eye. I cut out the switch and spliced the 2 wires together, and when I attached the battery the led turned on. So thinking it was just a bad switch I unplugged the battery and connected the pedal to my guitar and amp. but when I put the battery back in the pedal, the led was off and a clean signal was coming through to the amp, even though the mechanical switch was shorted, so the distortion should always be on. I unplugged the battery again and waited a few seconds, and the distortion came back. Disconnect battery again, plug in immediately, no distortion. Unplug, wait 10-20 seconds, plug in, and distortion is back. It looks like there's some kind of debouncing circuit controlling 3 jFETs to switch the signal between bypass and distortion. It looks like a digital flip flop circuit to me, which is why I'm posting here. I'm fine with bypassing the jfets and eliminating the debounce circuit altogether, but I'd like to fix it if I can. Does this sound like a bad cap in the debounce circuit, that has to discharge before the circuit can turn back on? I've been looking around online, and I couldn't find any one with the same problem. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, thanks for any help!

[Ice-9]

The boss switch is a momentary switch so when it pressed once it flips the state of the flip flop circuit which controls the fet switches, at each press it again flips the state of the flip flop. When power is applied to the circuit it can first start up in any state off or on.

If you power the pedal up then momentarily connect the two switch wires together then disconnect the wires again, keep repeating this to make sure the pedal keeps changing between on/off. If this works then it would just be a faulty switch that needs replacing.

The Boss flip flop can be modified to alter the balance of the flip flop so that it will power up in the same state all the time if that is preferred.

[duck_arse]

see - hear: http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/TStech/tsxfram.htm

also, welcome to the forum.

[fuzzranger]

Thanks for the reply! I unspliced the switch wires, and touched them together (make, break contact), and the pedal is turning off and on fine. I guess when I spliced the switch wires together I was confusing the flip flop circuit. I hadn't noticed the switch is momentary contact.  So the pedal is working fine now.