Ok so this will be my first......

[chuckusa]

So I have been reading for a little while now and I think I am ready to try and repair my first prebuilt pedal. Not sure if it works but I purchased this pedal in hopes that I will become more familiar with testing components and making simple replacements of parts, weather it be a diode resistor ect.

When I receive this pedal in the mail I will take a few nice pictures of the board. I know its like spoon feeding me lol, but can you guys take the pictures I post and edit them with little notes so I can identify the parts in question. My goal is to take this real cheap simple distortion pedal, fix it, then mod it slowly changing parts here and there until I get more comfortable using a breadboard and doing simple little changes to its sound with mods.

My hopes in doing this is I would like to continue my hobby of fiddling with these effect pedals with my spare change in parts lol. Its really interesting and I do want to learn. I am SLOW at learning though so please be gentle 

The pedal is a rocktek-dir-01-distortion



Also I haven't received the pedal yet its coming in the mail. I will post pictures of the board when I get it, thanks.

[duck_arse]

welcome to the forum, chuckusa.

you might want to ask one of the moderators to move this thread to the "building your own" section, where many many more people, everyone of them skilled at photo scribbles, will look and see and help.

while waiting for the pedal to arrive, search-up the schematic diagram - we'll ask for it, anyway.

[chuckusa]

Alright, thanks for the reply

[ElectricDruid]

Welcome!

I look forward to the guts shots. We love a nice photo of a pedal with its guts out round here...lol

Tom

[Kipper4]

Yer boi.
Welcome chuckusa.

I'm a slow learner too. No shame in that.
You are in the perfect place to learn at your pace, the guys here are great.
5 yrs ago I'd seen a resistor but didn't know what it did.
Thanks to the persistence of the guys I'm now cludging stuff together from what I've learnt.

A good place to learn is to look at some schematics of say transistor circuits.
Google is your friend
Common emitter.
Common collector
Breadboard them.

Small bear has a good place to learn about breadboarding.
I'm trying not to assume to much about how much you knowalready

How's your soldering.

That distortion may be an smd board. Meaning the tiny componant sizes used in mobile phones.
Then again you might get lucky and discover it all through hole.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Any questions just ask and we'll do our best to help.

[chuckusa]

Yer boi.
Welcome chuckusa.

I'm a slow learner too. No shame in that.
You are in the perfect place to learn at your pace, the guys here are great.
5 yrs ago I'd seen a resistor but didn't know what it did.
Thanks to the persistence of the guys I'm now cludging stuff together from what I've learnt.

A good place to learn is to look at some schematics of say transistor circuits.
Google is your friend
Common emitter.
Common collector
Breadboard them.

Small bear has a good place to learn about breadboarding.
I'm trying not to assume to much about how much you knowalready

How's your soldering.

That distortion may be an smd board. Meaning the tiny componant sizes used in mobile phones.
Then again you might get lucky and discover it all through hole.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Any questions just ask and we'll do our best to help.

My soldering is not too bad. I know a little about resistors capacitors and op amps. Thats really about it lol...

[chuckusa]

Welcome!

I look forward to the guts shots. We love a nice photo of a pedal with its guts out round here...lol

Tom

Cool lol.

[GibsonGM]

Hi Chuck, welcome!

One thing I'd like to add to your 'intro' - I think it might be easier to do a NEW project, like a opamp or BJT boost, rather than try to fix something already broken.  If you can control what's going on, you might end up learning more with a better 'workflow' or something like that, IMO.     Broken things often have stuff going on that is way out of our control, is what I mean...gremlins, things that make what SHOULD make sense seem like it doesn't...but whatever!

As long as you are enjoying what you're doing. Let us know if we can help.

[thermionix]

A buddy of mine has a Rocktek distortion, he asked me to mod it because frankly it sounds awful.  I searched for a schematic online but couldn't find one.  Theoretically could've traced the circuit but more trouble than it was worth.  So, good luck, and if you do find a schematic, please share!

[chuckusa]

I found this last night while hunting on google.

[pollyshero]

Ah - the Rocktec Distortion!  Fond memories, as it was the first pedal I ever bought...   I had it open a time or two, poking around before I knew anything.  If I recall it's not SMD (early 80s technology).

May I ask what your skill level is?  I see above you say "...I know a little about resistors capacitors and op amps. Thats really about it..." but if you've been reading and lurking you may know more than you think...  Are you familiar with basic concepts of DC circuits? Can you add/subtract/divide? Can you read a schematic? Have you ever troubleshot before?  Also tools - do you have a multimeter?  Audio probe?  Have you ever troubleshot an electric circuit?

Even if the answer to all of those is "no", don't sell yourself short.  Heaven knows I is not the sharpest tool in this shed but I've learned enough to repair/mod commercial/non commercial pedals, (some without any tech-data) and tweak existing designs and pedals.  Keep hanging out here - these folks know what they're doing.

If all you want to do is get your Rocktec up and running we'll get you there.  If you're interested in more than that I might suggest a reference I've found quite handy over the years: "Basic Electricity and DC Circuits" by Ralph Olivia and Charles Dale - this is the book once used by Texas Instruments to train it's novice in-house technicians.  Pretty easy read, covers the basics, and assumes no prior knowledge.  I got mine on Amazon used for around $20.  Another good and cheap reference is "Lessons in Electric Circuits" by Tony Kuphaldt - my last Google on that shows a B&N copy for $6.99.  Hell - I might even have that on .pdf!  Let me know if you're interested and I'll dig through the archive.

Anyway...  Welcome to the asylum.  Let us know what you need.

[thermionix]

I found this last night while hunting on google.

Thanks!  Saved.

[ElectricDruid]

I found this last night while hunting on google.

Nice work, and a good start. TBH, that circuit looks like standard stuff. Did you also come across this thread on another forum where people discuss possible mods for it?:

http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3763&sid=ca19505aaf5682a965d713e7be4e3f32

[chuckusa]

Ah - the Rocktec Distortion!  Fond memories, as it was the first pedal I ever bought...   I had it open a time or two, poking around before I knew anything.  If I recall it's not SMD (early 80s technology).

May I ask what your skill level is?  I see above you say "...I know a little about resistors capacitors and op amps. Thats really about it..." but if you've been reading and lurking you may know more than you think...  Are you familiar with basic concepts of DC circuits? Can you add/subtract/divide? Can you read a schematic? Have you ever troubleshot before?  Also tools - do you have a multimeter?  Audio probe?  Have you ever troubleshot an electric circuit?

Even if the answer to all of those is "no", don't sell yourself short.  Heaven knows I is not the sharpest tool in this shed but I've learned enough to repair/mod commercial/non commercial pedals, (some without any tech-data) and tweak existing designs and pedals.  Keep hanging out here - these folks know what they're doing.

If all you want to do is get your Rocktec up and running we'll get you there.  If you're interested in more than that I might suggest a reference I've found quite handy over the years: "Basic Electricity and DC Circuits" by Ralph Olivia and Charles Dale - this is the book once used by Texas Instruments to train it's novice in-house technicians.  Pretty easy read, covers the basics, and assumes no prior knowledge.  I got mine on Amazon used for around $20.  Another good and cheap reference is "Lessons in Electric Circuits" by Tony Kuphaldt - my last Google on that shows a B&N copy for $6.99.  Hell - I might even have that on .pdf!  Let me know if you're interested and I'll dig through the archive.

Anyway...  Welcome to the asylum.  Let us know what you need.

Thanks for the kindness. That pdf would be cool, if you can find it. I do have a multi meter, my math is ok. I am very novice to dc circuits and the whole idea of schematic reading. I would like to get my hands dirty with this rocktek pedal and see about making it work. Im still real new to trouble shooting but I will try to soak in everything I find on this site. 

[chuckusa]

I found this last night while hunting on google.

Nice work, and a good start. TBH, that circuit looks like standard stuff. Did you also come across this thread on another forum where people discuss possible mods for it?:

http://www.....org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3763&sid=ca19505aaf5682a965d713e7be4e3f32

I did find this schematic from another site called freestompboxes.org.

[chuckusa]

Hi Chuck, welcome!

One thing I'd like to add to your 'intro' - I think it might be easier to do a NEW project, like a opamp or BJT boost, rather than try to fix something already broken.  If you can control what's going on, you might end up learning more with a better 'workflow' or something like that, IMO.     Broken things often have stuff going on that is way out of our control, is what I mean...gremlins, things that make what SHOULD make sense seem like it doesn't...but whatever!

As long as you are enjoying what you're doing. Let us know if we can help.

Alright I will ask as I am poking along. Thanks.

[pinkjimiphoton]

A buddy of mine has a Rocktek distortion, he asked me to mod it because frankly it sounds awful.  I searched for a schematic online but couldn't find one.  Theoretically could've traced the circuit but more trouble than it was worth.  So, good luck, and if you do find a schematic, please share!

if memory serves, its the same as the arion 4 knob distortion

[Beo]

Often a commercial pedal that's misbehaving just has a bad solder joint on one of the jacks or the power plug. You might get this fixed in five minutes. But that's a learning experience too! Just like a "scratchy" pot... a little electronics cleaner, or worst case, replace the pot, and bob's your uncle!

But as far as learning, breadboard is where it is at. Alternatively, build a tubescreamer (lots of premade boards you can buy cheap) and socket many of the key components.

Let us know when you're ready to etch your own pcb or enclosure... that's when you know you've made it and got the bug!

Cheers!

[chuckusa]

Often a commercial pedal that's misbehaving just has a bad solder joint on one of the jacks or the power plug. You might get this fixed in five minutes. But that's a learning experience too! Just like a "scratchy" pot... a little electronics cleaner, or worst case, replace the pot, and bob's your uncle!

But as far as learning, breadboard is where it is at. Alternatively, build a tubescreamer (lots of premade boards you can buy cheap) and socket many of the key components.

Let us know when you're ready to etch your own pcb or enclosure... that's when you know you've made it and got the bug!

Cheers!

Well I did order some dip 8 sockets from china and I ordered me one LM308 Op am IC chip from ebay also. Do you guys think the LM308 will fit in this pedal? I will snap some pics of it later today. I always wanted to convert a cheap pedal into a custom rat style. Then eventually make my own custom rat pedal.... 

[Kipper4]

Your schematic calls for a jrc4558 ( btw often the prefix can be different, lm4558. Same thing just different manufacturers.)
This is a dual op amp in a dip8 package.

I googled the pinout for you
http://www.elektropage.com/default.asp?tid=618

Your lm308 is a sIngle op amp in a dip8 package
Notice the pinout is different. So this won't be a drop in replacement part

The pinout and is on page 2 here

http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/lt0108.pdf

It's always a good idea to google such things or ask here for opinions.

However having said congratulations on securing the parts for a future build.

The rat is an absolute classic.

Rich