Catalinbread quality control or bad repair job?

[marcelomd]

Hi,

I recently bought an used Catalinbread Dirty Little secret MkI. Sounds good if a bit "woofy".
Today I opened this up and found some very... shoddy... soldering job.








There are some cold joints. A lot of flux residue. A burnt wire with the connector exposed. A crooked potentiometer with a cap soldered to it and some excess solder on the bottom side.
But this all seems to be original. The top side looks mostly clean and the values match with the schematic.

What do you guys think?

[bloxstompboxes]

Flux is not something you can often or should do things about in a manufacturing facility. It's not harmful or even effectual to the circuit. This is especially true if it's 'no clean' flux. As for the cap soldered to the pot, you should see the stuff i see at work. I see boards out of C-Arm Xray machines that come from GE with traces cut by razor blades and jumpers glued in place from one point to another. Technically, they say you are not suppose to be opening the product to begin with and while doing so void your warranty. Unfortunately, cold solder can happen and be missed during inspection. The burnt wire and connector are unfortunate as well. I wouldn't stop buying their product for one bad pedal though. ALL manufacturers have a few bad eggs from time to time.

[marcelomd]

I don't really mind some adjusts made at the factory or even some creative repairs. I used to work for a telco equipment company (think Cisco) and did my internship at a hospital's engineering dept, so I know what you are talking about =)

I CAN redo the solders, but I'm kinda bummed out anyway. Repair or not, that is some lack of craftsmanship. This is a small boutique shop where people should be proud of their work, not a multi million cutthroat business.

If this is indeed a bad repair, I will return it.

[bloxstompboxes]

I would be curious if they actually do the work themselves or if they have the pcb maker in china place the parts and run it through a solder wave.

[marcelomd]

I would be curious if they actually do the work themselves or if they have the pcb maker in china place the parts and run it through a solder wave.

Up close, every joint has some flux around it. Looks 100% manual.

[ElectricDruid]

I don't know whether that's a repair job or not, but one thing strikes me as a bit fishy.

That's the pots on wires. Why would Catalinbread do that? Soldering in the correct right-angle pots is much quicker (only half as many joints, plus no wire stripping required) and it's not like they can't get hold of them because there's a minimum order of 1000 pieces or something.

The other thing to remember is that electronics companies take on new staff from time to time, and those new staff have to learn, same as everyone else did. I know this because I was that person once, and was given the job of gluing mil-spec connectors into a milled recess in the enclosure with epoxy. I'd done about twenty very badly before the production manager spotted me and went ballistic. I got away lightly, but the guy who was supposed to be training me and keeping an eye on me until I knew what I was doing got roasted!

So maybe it was just the board done by the trainee...still, my enclosures got redone by people who were more skilled, apart from a few which were beyond help and got binned (making my training expensive), so perhaps Catalinbread could have got someone else to go over the board.

[marcelomd]

That may actually be the true story. The other forum has a gutshot of this pedal, complete with globs of flux. Right below it is Nic, the pedal creator, saying it is no-clean flux.

I did not mind the potentiometers because the board and the enclosure don't match. That pot with the long pins is twisted so it will fit the enclosure. I imagine the wires are there for the same reason. Cheaper than fixing the batch of boards.

[duck_arse]

the board is marked no lead, and the joints look like someone's first lead free soldering job. that, or it was soldered by an engineer instead of a production worker. [I've never done lead free soldering, so I don't claim I'd do my first any better.]

[marcelomd]

Last reply from Catalinbread:

Hi Marcelo.  It is true that we use no-clean flux on our pedals and that it is not removed, but there is no reason why it should be as burned up as it is on your pedal, or that the batter strap is as charred as it is.  Something happened to this pedal, there is just no way anyone would have approved that pedal the way it is and shipped it out like that.  It looks like someone may have tried to replace the footswitch at some point in time by dipping the lower half of the board into a solder pot, and just cooked it to death, and did nothing to clean it up after the fact.  I just don't believe this pedal ever left our shop charred up like this, it really is the ugliest thing I think I've ever seen.  That being said, with the right solvent, like flux-off, or isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush, you may be able remove most of the charred flux, and replacing the battery strap is a fairly cheap and easy fix.  It may clean up nice, potentially.

I'm really sorry that this pedal is in such a state.  Let us know if you are able to return it, or choose to proceed with your refurb.

Meh... It is a shame. I'll return the pedal. Let state that Gar, their customer support guy is awesome.

Thanks guys.

[bloxstompboxes]

I have to admit that I did not click on the pictures for the full size and it does make a difference. I also, missed the bent pot. The flux is excessive as hell on that footswitch. And I see barrels with pin holes in the solder, too much solder, and cold joints. I agree, it does look hand soldered with the flux at every joint. I just can't imagine what they were doing with the switch and the melted wires. Glad to see that they did communicate with you in a professional manner.

[Ice-9]

I have repaired a few Catalinbread pedals in the past and can say I have never seen one as badly built as that.
The pots on leads are quite standard for them but the bad joints around the jacks and bypass switch are not, along with the melted battery wires.

I would suggest this has been messed around with by someone outside of Catalinbread. If you bought this second hand then I can understand but if you bought it new I would not be happy. Either way I doubt very much it left the catalinbread workshop in that condition. I would question the place you bought it from.

EDIT--- I just noticed you said you bought it USED. Someone has been messing with the pedal and sold it on.

[mth5044]

2009/Mk1 was a pretty long time ago. I don't remember how old the company is, but it's possible this pedal was made by a guy or two sitting at a folding table stuffing pedals like we do. Could have been wrong parts ordered or PCBs got screwed up and that was the work around.

Or Catalinbred could have been getting their circuits stuffed in China in 2009 and you just got a whack hack job

[thermionix]

Looks like a repair to me.  PCB-mounted footswitch and jacks lead to cracked solder joints.  Somebody tried resoldering and maybe wasn't quite prepared for dealing with the Pb-free solder.  Barrel of iron hit battery wires while working on the footswitch.  Looks bad but should still work.