Bypassing the Ibanez Soundtank switching

[vortex]

I am trying to rehouse an Ibanez soundtank pedal specifically to upgrade the switching. Most Soundtank users have discovered that the switching is often flaky and unreliable. In the past I have cleaned the switches with Deoxit and they come back to life for a while. I did find one post that mentioned swapping a cap in the switching circuit.  I want to isolate the circuit from the FET switching and install a nice 3PDT switch and be done with it.

  I have had a good search around here and can't find a schematic that illustrated where to isolate the switching . There are many threads where this Soundtank problem is brought up, perhaps we can document a specific solution to this?

Here is a schematic for the Soundtank pedal I am trying to rehouse. Hopefully the link works!

Many thanks!

[/URL]][URL=http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=classicmetalgc7.jpg][/URL]

[vortex]

If those links aren't cooperating , here is another attempt to post the schem.

[vortex]

Bump.

Anyone???
Thx!

[Dirk_Hendrik]

Always good to see the stuff I dumped on the web is being used. You could have linked directly from my site for better definition.
http://www.dirk-hendrik.com/classic_metal.pdf


In this schematic I left te flipflop circuit that controls the FET's out. This is a standard 2 transistor circuit that's the same in every Ibanez pedal (OK, there's a few exceptions).

As you see there are 3 switching FET's.  Remove em all 3. For the 2 FET's that are controlled wit EFF_ON put a piece of wire between the 2 outer wires of the FET, laving the middle one, that connects to the diode empty. The effect is now always on.

Next, break the PCB trace where it connects to the jack and apply the standard TB scheme. (input jack to switch middle position, side of that section to circuit input, circuit output to side of next section of that switch and middle of that next section to the output jack.) Connect the LED wires to the 3rd section with a fresh resistor in series to the battery voltage.
You might want to add a 1 meg resistor to ground at the circuit input to avoid pops.

[ubersam]

Warning: I am not an expert, just a tweaker. Proceed with caution. This is what I would try - http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n188/ubersam/schematics/classicmetalgc7switching.jpg

[vortex]

Always good to see the stuff I dumped on the web is being used. You could have linked directly from my site for better definition.
http://www.dirk-hendrik.com/classic_metal.pdf

Many pardons Dirk! I just googled the schem and downloaded it to my desktop. Credit where credit is due. Sorry about that and thanks! (Beats head with Hammond 1590BB enclosure, Doh!)

Ubersam: Thanks for the refinements. You were a bit bolder than I in deciding where to drop parts! I still haven't attempted the mod yet. I want to be sure that I have the right info. Personally, I have a harder time modding commercial pedals than making DIY vero builds from scratch.