Early version Boss CS-3 not working

[ayayay!]

Looking at that picture (it's a newer unit, with THAT vca) D10 and R32 are jumpered. 

Ahh, this may be part of it.  If D10 and R32 are present, you have one of the pedals that was made for 12V Unregulated adapters.  Look up the PSA to ASA debate at http://stinkfoot.se/archives/726

Jumper them. 

[beatnik]

ahhhhhhhh!!!  end of the odyssey!!

jumpered R32 and D10, and connected DC jack ground to main circuit ground.

The pedal now works flawlessly, and sounds very good!!

Only a bit noisy, but i have read about some mods to improve the s/n ratio. I will try them very soon.

Thanks ayayay!, Govmnt_Lacky and everybody who helped. Long live diystompboxes!

[ayayay!]

Hey alright!  Don't you love that when it works?  Have fun!

[zombiwoof]

Just to elaborate on the ACA/PSA adapter thing, I recently bought a NIB ACA adapter, since I have a few ACA-powered Boss pedals now.  The ACA adapter says "9 volts" on it, but it is an unregulated 9 volt adapter, when I measured the voltage being put out by it (not connected to the pedal), it puts out 14.2 volts!.   So it's obvious why those ACA pedals don't work right when someone tries using a regulated 9 volt adapter on them.   I also found that the "9 volt" adapters that come with BBE pedals will work with my ACA Boss pedals, when I measured the voltage of one of those I found that it is putting out 13.7 volts, so it seems that BBE is supplying unregulated power supplies with their pedals.   Makes me wonder if the BBE pedals also have some components in them to drop the voltage to around 9 volts, as the older Boss pedals did?.  Why would a modern pedal company take this route, when most pedals these days use regulated power?.

Many people buy those old Boss pedals and don't think they are working right because they try common regulated power supplies with them.  This thread is the third one I recall in the past few months in which someone didn't know their recently-purchased vintage Boss pedal required voltage in excess of 9 volts to work correctly.  I also read that Boss later put out some ACA-labeled adapters that were actually regulated 9 volt power supplies, to complicate things even more!.   That's the reason I measured the one I bought, just in case it was one of those later ACA adapters.

Al

[ayayay!]

Why would a modern pedal company take this route, when most pedals these days use regulated power?

Cause they're cheap.  (Both the pedals and transformers.)

While I don't know if BBE uses some parts to drop it to 9v (or 9.6v or whatever) I will agree the BBE transformers are horrible. 

Sorry, IMHO I'd rather play old Arion crap than trust most BBE products. 

[zombiwoof]

Why would a modern pedal company take this route, when most pedals these days use regulated power?

Cause they're cheap.  (Both the pedals and transformers.)

While I don't know if BBE uses some parts to drop it to 9v (or 9.6v or whatever) I will agree the BBE transformers are horrible. 

Sorry, IMHO I'd rather play old Arion crap than trust most BBE products. 

I think the BBE pedals I have are great.  I have the Orange Squeezer clone (mine is the earlier version called the Main Squeeze, later it was changed to the Orange Squash), the Green Screamer, the Boosta Grande, and the Free Fuzz.  The only one I'm not crazy about is the Free Fuzz, but I hear there is a simple mod to make it sound better.   They use good components, and are true bypass in a metal box, so I see nothing wrong with the quality of the pedals themselves, I just noticed this weird thing about the power supplies.  I'm going to get the Bench Press next (Ross comp clone with true bypass and an attack control, which I think is essential on the Ross/Dynacomp circuits).  I like their pedals.

Al

[thehallofshields]

This may sound like a really weird question, but here goes:  Look around your PCB.  Are there ANY diodes on there that should not be?  Like somewhere that has a resistor and diode in series, where there should only be a resistor?  About 3 years ago, I ran across two CS-3's like that, but they were in different spots.  They seemed to come from the factory that way.  I know it sounds nuts, just check. 

I just somehow killed my pedal by socketing IC2. The one anomaly I noticed in the pedal was that R35 (which limits LED current) has a diode->resistor instead of just a resistor. Can this give me any hints to tell me about my model and possible power supply problems?

[ayayay!]

just somehow killed my pedal by socketing IC2.

And why did you do this?  What did you replace it with?

The one anomaly I noticed in the pedal was that R35 (which limits LED current) has a diode->resistor instead of just a resistor.

Yes this is the kind of thing I'm seeing in the CS-3s.  I don't know why on earth they're doing that.  Is it one of those little orange diodes?  I say remove it and use just the resistor, but I think you're other issue is more pressing. 

[thehallofshields]

just somehow killed my pedal by socketing IC2.

And why did you do this?  What did you replace it with?

I was going to replace it with a Burr Brown Op-Amp. I created a new help me thread for my problems:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=89706.0

But I was just curious if there was any reason to leave the diode in. Yes, it's a common Si with an Orange Band leading into the resistor. Kind of strange, huh?