If your Boss pedal switches intermittantly (or has other mysterious issues)...

[alltherightpills]

So a buddy of mine asked me to fix his Boss DD5, saying that the switch was messed up somehow because it would sometimes get stuck on or off.  So I opened the pedal up to check it out, and when I took the back off, I noticed that there was no insulation between the back of the board and the pedal's bare metal bottom (ass?).  These Boss pedals usually have a sheet of plastic insulation in the back, don't they?

Well, it turns out that all it needed was a little insulation between the board and the back of the enclosure, and it now works perfectly.  I'm glad I started there and not with replacing any components!

*note to self: make sure PCBs are not contacting the enclosure at all.  you might just save yourself a huge PITA.*

[sepultura]

Talking about intermittent switching on/off, here's what I ran in to. I'd opened up my boss SD-1 to mod, and while testing it before putting it all back together, I plugged in the AC adapter and switched it on. The LED would flicker, go on and off and act weird. Then I noticed that the outer sleeve of the plug from the AC adapter was in intermittent contact with the pedal's metal casing, causing sparks. I hadn't put the pedal's power socket in its place yet. There was a direct short. I'm surprised it didn't kill my adapter. Watch out.

[vortex]

I had a Boss TU-2 tuner pedal that was acting up when switched. It would engage and then almost instantly disengage.

It turned out that the problem was the battery clip. The contacts had slackened off. By stomping on the pedal the contact would give just enough to cut power to the pedal and reset it to off! A quick retension of the contact and all was well.

I love those simple fixes!

[MartyMart]

I was given a "beat up" TU-2 about two years ago, it wouldn't fire up at all.
I had a good look see, spotted all the SMD parts and huge IC in there and said
"it's dead"
Well it had been toured for 5 years and had beer spilled in it about 4 times.
eight months later, I was thinking of just "reusing" the enclosure, then noticed that
the Input socket was loose.
Tightened it all up and it worked !
Just wasn't grounded at input from being loose ..... it was too late to confess so I'm
sorry to say that I kept it !   

MM.

[Processaurus]

Aaah, the loose jack.  Boss only runs a ground wire from one jack to the board, the rest are just screwed to the chassis and rely on the continuety of the chassis to the wired jack to ground them (and the chassis), so if that or the others get loose, it'll have either buzz or other intermittant problems.  Thats a good one to remember for concerts.  One time I got a boss distortion for $10  because the jacks had lost their nuts, and it wouldn't work.  I felt bad, but it found a good home with a pedal-less friend...