Triangle Big Muff Weak Tranny Advice

[Dragonfly]

Izzat a top or a bottom view???

Either way, the emitter is closest to the "flat" edge of the transistor. Collector is farthest.

BTW...good advice on the EH pedals. The electro's are usually darn close to "bad", even if theyre still working.

AC

[Paul Corusoe]

I am looking at mouser.com, Should I get bipolar like this?
http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=UMP1V2R2MDDvirtualkey64700000virtualkey647-UMP1V2R2MDD
Meanderthal I appreciate the attention and I have braid.
Again thanks for helping, I am going to just do it like R.G. said. Is that as in Keen?

[skiraly017]

Mouser has 3uF electrolytics. Part number 75-TE1302-E3. Just thought I'd pass that on.

[Meanderthal]

 Yes, I was wrong. They're axial, but you can use em.

http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=TE1302-E3virtualkey61320000virtualkey75-TE1302-E3

3uf is just an oddball value I associate with old stuff... sorry.

[Dan N]

Am I the only one cringing? Those old pcb's are so prone to lifting traces and yours is so pristine. A triangle Big Muff is a bad classroom for developing solder techniques.

Sorry to say...

[Meanderthal]

 Yep, that's why I hollered "desoldering braid" as soon as I saw it. Still, would be nice to get the old gal up and runnin'... left as is ya got a classic doorstop.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

"sputtering" in the description makes me think of a misbiased transistor - possibly from an old electro gone leaky. Here's hoping..

[Paul Corusoe]

This is a learning experience for me. I have soldered very little. I am Not in a hurry. When lifting the old solder, do I lay the braid on top of the solder and heat the braid, or touch the tip of the heat and the the tip of the braid to the solder to be lifted? I have found that if I clip off the tip after soaking up a bit that the new tip is more absorbant. I do have a BYOC fuzz face on the way. I guess I will try not to heat the traces and stick to the tips of the caps keep the braid freshly cut and if I see a trace lifting stop and look for professional help, technical and physcological? I am not dead set on this attempt. It is a cool collectable pedal and I don't want to destroy it. hmmmm 

[R.G.]

This is a learning experience for me. I have soldered very little. I am Not in a hurry.

Then by all means, go do some experimentation on something else first. Don't learn on this one.

When lifting the old solder, do I lay the braid on top of the solder and heat the braid, or touch the tip of the heat and the the tip of the braid to the solder to be lifted?/quote]
You first get your soldering iron nice and hot. You want it to melt solder very quickly. Get the tip clean and shiny, and touch it with fresh rosin core solder immediately before touching the braid. You want heat to go in quickly.
Then lay the braid on the solder joint and immediately press the solder onto the braid. Keep it there until you see solder wick up into the braid and flow out to the sides of the iron. This should take a count of no more than six seconds. If it's longer than that, get the iron and braid off the joint - your iron is too cold, or something else is wrong and you're in danger of lifting the copper pad.

Better yet, clip off the components you're replacing from the top side of the board first. Poke the bit of leftover lead in the hole though the bottom side with a wooden toothpick as you melt the solder on the bottom, then lift the lead out with your soldering iron. That clears the lead out of the hole. Let the pad cool to the touch. Then re-heat the pad with your iron as you poke the wooden toothpick through from the bottom side. The solder will part over the hole, leaving you a pad with solder on it. Each melting should be under two seconds long, and the pad should be cooled down before you re-heat it.

The procedure is different for double-sided boards. This is not a double sided board.

I have found that if I clip off the tip after soaking up a bit that the new tip is more absorbant.

In fact, fresh braid with no solder in it MUST be used for each new hole. Don't even try to re-absorb more solder into an previously used area of braid.

I guess I will try not to heat the traces and stick to the tips of the caps keep the braid freshly cut and if I see a trace lifting stop and look for professional help, technical and physcological? I am not dead set on this attempt. It is a cool collectable pedal and I don't want to destroy it. hmmmm

That's an even better idea. Find someone skilled with soldering to replace the parts.

In summary, to avoid lifting pads:
- get your soldering iron tip clean and well tinned
- get your soldering iron hot enough first
- get in quick with high heat and get out fast; it's the time you heat the joint that melts the adhesive under the copper more than the temperature.

[Meanderthal]

 To get a feel for it, it'd be a good idea to build the  BYOC first. Then see if ya have a hard time swapping out some parts(possibly mod it, or a debug). If you feel confident after that, ok, you're good to go, but if you aren't sure you have the skills, then it might not be a good idea...

If you can get your hands on an old broken tv, preferably old enough to have carbon comp resistors, the pcb's on those would be great to get experience desoldering, and putting parts back in.

It's good that you're not in a hurry. Best way to screw up a pedal is to rush through it.

[Paul Corusoe]

Well I hope I'm not thought less of but I'm going to send it to Marc with Skreddy. I went and bought caps and a work station to hold my work. I have a fuzz from byoc on the way I'm going to build it and post it here. I just don't want to mess up my old muff. Thanks for the good advice and I'm going to practice soldering and playing my guitar.

[Yun]

Well I hope I'm not thought less of but I'm going to send it to Marc with Skreddy. I went and bought caps and a work station to hold my work. I have a fuzz from byoc on the way I'm going to build it and post it here. I just don't want to mess up my old muff. Thanks for the good advice and I'm going to practice soldering and playing my guitar.

not to belittle you, or discourage you at all when i say this- but:  sometimes this is the best/wisest decision, man.  I'm sure that lots of us agree with me, and feel the same way:  i for one, still feel a little uncomfortable/iffy about working on vintage gear.  as a matter o' fact i HATE working on vintage gear.  Not to mention a lot of the average vintage effect is not built well at all.  atleast in my experience. 

So, in my opinion; forking over a thousand dollars for a vintage fender CAN be worth it in some cases, but not at all worth it when it comes to vintage effects.  Of course i'm not saying that ALL vintage effects are built poorly, but...........

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I must say, I usually don't repair vintage FX either. Even if I have a shrewd idea on what might be wrong, I'd rather pay someone who is good at that kind of thing, and enjoys doing it.
I like designing & building NEW stuff, and there is no sweat repairing it. But I simpley don't enjoy trying to trace other people's circuits & fr the time and tears involved, there's a lot of other things I'd rather be doing.
But, that's one of the marvellous things about stompboxing, everyone brings something different to the table.

[Meanderthal]

 Yeah, it's cool, best to play it safe if you're uncomfortable...

Personally, I don't hesitate to work on non-working 'vintage' pedals. Vintage is relative, not so long ago these were no big deal. Simple stuff like that's easy to work on anyway, and as ya noted earlier, ya get a big charge out of getting it up and running.

I'm also thankful you posted those pics and the odd cap value(s)... there's a lotta hype going around about how the triangle version sounds so different, now I can easily see a few reasons why. I haven't decoded those resistor values yet either, but one thing that jumped out at me (besides all carbon comp) is that they are all either 10% or 20% tolerance. That's a hell of a lotta wriggle room.
All those electrolytics in the signal path is another interesting difference. Usually that would be just the in and output decoupling caps, but in this one it's electros all the way through.
Basically, there's a few differences that are contrary to 'conventional wisdom', the kinds of things I wouldn't have tried myself, that are gonna have a lot to do with the sound of this thing. I imagine this one might sound wooly as hell compared to more common versions! Gave me a few ideas/answered a few questions...

So, thank you!

[Skreddy]

Got it today.  I removed all those 3uf electros and replaced them with the standard .1uf ceramics I've seen in every other triangle knob.  Sounds gorgeous!  Very tight and amp-like yet velvety and fuzzy; perfect.  This is that quintiscential tone.

I also re-wired it for true bypass, upgraded to Switchcraft jacks and new battery clip and cleaned it up a little.  I made it turn off power when the input is unplugged OR when the power switch is turned off.  Sorry no pics of the component side; I don't want to take it apart and risk scratching up the case any more.  One of the cleanest I've seen.  Nice!  I really love these old things.

I used Xicon ceramic disc .1uf caps from Mouser. 

[MartyMart]

Nice work Skreddy
That should last another 20 years !
MM.

[Meanderthal]

 Sweet! It warms my heart to see the old gal on her feet again...

Edit- I'm still curious about the 3uf electros though... wonder what that woulda sounded like... Probably muddy as hell though(I sure never heard of it before), but still... I guess I'll have to experiment if I really wanna know...

Ya think that was stock, or was it a mod from way back?

[Skreddy]

I think those 3uf electros were a very strange anomaly.  I'm not convinced they were stock, and the solder joints didn't all look the same, but no real evidence supports the mod theory either.

No doubt it would sound really fuzzy and wooly with those, like a fuzzface driving a fuzzface or something.  With these incredible-sounding transistors, it would sound good no matter what capacitors were in there.

Let us know if you ever decide to make the BIIIIIIIIIIG Muff with 3uf caps.   I know it would have been fun, but I just have too much respect for the classic triangle-knob tone to not at least try to bring it to those specs.  If the transistors had ended up sounding weak, I would have put in some bigger caps to fatten it up, but not necessary.

[Paul Corusoe]

Thanks Marc!! I am absolutely confident that I did the right thing sending it to you. I have just finished my first pedal build, a byoc ultimate fuzz and I'm learning how to solder. I know that byoc is very elementary but that is the level I'm at. I'm just having fun with it. I'm learning things like ac127's sound great and I don't have to spend so much for nkt 275's to get cool tone. Also to leave the led out of the circuit to get better tone. I know way off topic...
I do have the original knobs at the house. It sure looks great in your pics!! Can't wait to hear it!
Max

[Skreddy]

Cool; where are you getting your AC127s?  I've got some nice old ones from Ireland, but the tradeoff for the great tone is that they're wildly inconsistent gain-wise and much more sensitive to temperature than new ones.  You can still get the same tone from a fuzzface with an LED, but you probably have to adjust the bias to make up for the LED's current draw in the circuit.  Touchy circuits, those.  Your Big Muff goes back home today.