Debug a TS808 no gain - Deadhorse by Protone - lots of pics

[spunko]

Hello friends, this is my fisrt post here.  Grin
I have a Dead Horse by Protone that bougth from ebay, it's supposed to be a TS808 clon with symetrical/asymetrical diode clipping. When I tryed it, didn´t have much gain, in fact it was like a clean boost with little gain at 100% all knobs, I tryed batteries and two 1spot.
I thought it was modded to be a clean boost, then I saw that the led was a different color (green) from the orginal (red), so I oppned it again, and saw that the Drive knob was 160K, instead of a 500K that the schematics show. I changed the knob and the led for a red and 500k and it worked, when I first tryed it sounded like a OD pedal, with a lot of gain \m/. Then I took off the power cord and plug it again for more testing, and sadly it sounded like a clean boost again, almost no gain. After more testing, the pedal works randomly, sometimes I have to plug/unplug the power 4 or 5 times because it truns on with no gain. Somtimes will turn on with normal gain at the fist try.
I don't have much technical knowledge, and can't figure out the problem here, I hope someone help me to solve it. I have a fluke multimeter, soldering skills, and a lot of patience Smiley
Sorry for my bad english.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98412073@N07/sets/72157639872854366/

[Mario44]

Hi
What power supply do you use. Is it 9V?
I'm not the real specialist but you should really use socket at least for main IC - it really helps sometimes.
And check connection with gain pot. I've had similar problem with other effects. Somehow my pots were soldered well enough but I had no reaction from them.

[spunko]

Hello, yes, it is a 1spot 9v 1700 mA.
Its weird, I know something has to be damage because is not normal that the pedal truns on with almost no gain, and after a few unplugs it works ok.
I have 2 one spots 1700 mA, and a tc electrnic 600 mA that came with my flashback x4. The problem persists with all of them.

[Kipper4]

Are you comparing it to the TS ?
Based on the TS808 could mean lots of things.

[J0K3RX]

Trace it out and get all the values, then we can make a schematic... If this is truly a ProTone pedal it looks like pure garbage! Maybe an old one or something? I can't believe that Keith Merrow and Misha Mansoor would use anything of this poor quality

[spunko]

I also have a vicking distortion by protone, is the same inside.

[Ice-9]

From your description to sounds to me you might have a dry joint or a broken intermittent wire connection somewhere.

[spunko]

As soon as I get home will start to check all joints. I'm really dissapointed with this brand, I googled "protone bad quality" and got a few results, even a Jason becker distortion, better construction that mine, still looks like crap. I think its not worth the $140/150 usd. I got it half price, still crap, should have bought a joyo or a true ibañez

[Arcane Analog]

That is not worth fixing. Gut the sucker and build your own so you know it will be reliable.

[flopoeko]

Have you tried the pedal with different power supply unit (psu)? The 1spot might be a switch-mode-unit from what I understand. I´d try a normal linear one.
I don´t know for sure about overdrive pedals, but with some analog modulation as well as digital pedals these switchmode-supplies
create all sorts of weird behaviour (intermittend operation, groundloops, noise or in some instance with a Boss Delay from a friend
when you touched the cable at the jack it behaved as if the cable had a broken ground-connection. We solved it by using a linear psu).
Voodoolab or T-Rex Fueltank is usually a good idea (isolated, stabilizied, linear, reduced strayfield torroidal transformer, enough current), although for
testing/troubleshooting the origins of the problem a cheap Ibanez or Boss will certainly do the job...

[Ice-9]

As soon as I get home will start to check all joints. I'm really dissapointed with this brand, I googled "protone bad quality" and got a few results, even a Jason becker distortion, better construction that mine, still looks like crap. I think its not worth the $140/150 usd. I got it half price, still crap, should have bought a joyo or a true ibañez

Yeah ! you should of bought one from me , cheaper and better  . Sorry man Hope you got sorted anyway.

[Belanger]

my dead horse looks nothing like that. I don't have those huge capacitors