Let's mod a DS-2 for RELAY bypass...

[Stickman393]

WHELP!

I'm somewhat shocked and amazed, but I got this thing to work on the first attempt.

So...what did I do...

I got this DS-2 off eBay in "for parts" condition. Iffy foot switch, the dude said. Makes sense. They go out. I was looking for a DS-1 to mod...but this looked interesting.

As to exactly how I started: well, obviously I had to replace the footswitch. But that got me thinking...huh...it'd be fun to throw a relay bypass in this thing. So I studied the schematic...and thought to myself "ohhh, that FET look good. Stickman smash!" In my normal, cave dwelling internal dialect.

So I removed the buffers that get switched out of the circuit when the pedal is "on", and the entire circuit responsible for controlling the FETs (STICKMAN SMASH!!! DESOLDER FUN!!!). I removed a few DC blocking caps and jumpered where appropriate.

I removed the battery snap (stickman get power from hole in wall, hurk hurk) installed a pedal PCB simple non-latching relay bypass in the battery compartment, and miraculously was able to figure out exactly where I needed to land everything in order to get it to work.

I made a few mods to the clipping stages and tone stack, and recapped the whole pedal. Call me superstitious, I don't like the look of those mylar film caps. And 'dem shifty-lookin monolithic ceramics. Don't even get me started on the electrolytics...which were actually decent Panasonics, but I swapped em cause I always do that with anything that could be over 20 years old...

Plugged her in, held my breath, and EGADS it worked.

As to the sound? Needs additional tweaking. Shift the upper mid peak a little lower, roll off a little bass, add back in some top-end in mode 1. I swapped a green LED in one half of the soft clip stage, and a germanium for one half of the hard clip. The result is...little too loose for my tastes. I'm gonna experiment a bit more.

Behold!

 

[Stickman393]

Switched up a few items, removed the germanium, swapped the green LED to D9. I had purchased a few nanolog clipping stages a while back...so I decided to throw one of my N3's in there.

I also swapped out C34 to an 8.2nF...the original value was 6.8, and I had jumped to a 10nF initially...but that made the pedal sound WAYY too dark.

Result: better. Turbo mode is slightly unnerving...that mid bump is like holy damn dude calm the fuck down. Gonna see if I can tame that beast a bit...

And what do you know...I *just* found this little schematic on freestompboxes that someone else drew up. It matches 1:1 for what I cut out and jumped in order to remove the stock boss bypass.

It's comforting after the fact here...honestly, I'm kinda glad I didn't find this earlier. It forced me to test my understanding of the schematic and take a little bit of a leap of faith...at least I know that there was another person out there with a parallel train of thought.

 

[peccary]

Well done! I have a DS-1 and have some mods in mind that Chuck filled me in on to make it more bass friendly.

 

[wintercept]

This was a great read! Nice work. I want to get a DS-2 one day because John Fruciante…

Good call replacing the electros, they last a good while in pedals compared to the ones in tube amps and such since they are often run well within spec, but you never know as the decades go by. The films and ceramics were probably fine, but it’s definitely better off with the new ones.

Interesting mods. I’ve heard most people say the Turbo mode is pretty useless as it is. And holy cow, you put a nanolog in there!? That’s one lucky DS-2.

 

[Stickman393]

This was a great read! Nice work. I want to get a DS-2 one day because John Fruciante…

Good call replacing the electros, they last a good while in pedals compared to the ones in tube amps and such since they are often run well within spec, but you never know as the decades go by. The films and ceramics were probably fine, but it’s definitely better off with the new ones.

Interesting mods. I’ve heard most people say the Turbo mode is pretty useless as it is. And holy cow, you put a nanolog in there!? That’s one lucky DS-2.

Yeah, I never take an electro for granted in something used. Truthfully, 98% of the ones I pull test out OK...at least as far as ESR and actual value are concerned. I'm typically not testing for leakage. Anything I can swap for a polymer or film cap, though, I swap...cause that's probably the last time the cap'll ever need to be changed.

The ceramics and film caps were all just fine...but I'm a special kind of crazy.

I mean, anything ceramic in a pedal I open up gets replaced with C0G type MLCC or polypropylene. Mostly for theoretical reasons...temperature coefficient/microphony. Except for IC power supply decoupling...if a circuit even uses that. Those get X7R.

Films...the mylar is probably just fine. Call it a superstition. I like throwing in my KEMETs and WIMAs. Depending on what can fit and what I have on hand, I'll throw in a Polypro, C0G MLCC, PPS, NOS polycarbonate, polyester, or X7R in that order.

I'm sure over time as my understanding of these circuits expands I'll re-evaluate my component choices...for right now, I'm just using whatever dielectric performs best on paper...in a general sense. As far as I can understand.

Yeah...so mostly superstition. Dielectric superstition. I know surprisingly little when I attempt to explain my behaviors.

 

[fig]

Dielectric superstition.

I have this witchdoctor buddy....just sayin. ..

Great mod and enjoyable read!

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Very clever. I’ve been planning on using the relay bypass in exactly this way for something im going to build into a boss enclosure