Smallstone Phaser Problems/Project

[superfanthony]

I was given a Smallstone Phaser. According to this site, it is an original v1 model, that looks like this, the only difference being a different style knob to control the phase rate.

It is very touchy. I have cracked it open and noticed that most of the connections were taped up and loose. Being an electronics novice at best, I tried to shore up the connections as best I could. For a while, it worked fine, but if it was dropped or jostled too hard, it would cut out. I purchased a soldering iron and fixed a couple loose connections, which lead to a different problem.

The case is in 2 parts. The top half, shown in the picture, which all the switches and jacks are mounted in, and a bottom half, which only holds the battery. The problem is that, when disconnected from the bottom half, or even just partially in the bottom half of the case, the pedal worked fine. When I connected the 2 halves completely, though, it would not work. Assuming that it was just a short of somekind, I once again took everything out and double checked to make sure that it was all connected well and not in a position to contact the bottom half of the case.

Now the thing wont work at all.

I have decided to rewire the majority of the pedal. All the switch, jack, and battery wires are in bad shape. Before I get into it, though, I wanted to come along and ask for tips, pointers and advice from people who know what they are doing. As I said, I am somewhat of a novice. I could probably hack my way through it, but I think it will save me a ton of frustration and time if some of you passed along anything that may help a noob like me take on a seemingly simple project like this.

My other question is in regards to housing the pedal. I have Jim Dunlop GCB-95 wah pedal missing a switch and 2 wires. I was thinking it would be cool to swap out the wah pcb and replace it with the phaser pcb, so I could control the phase rate with a foot pedal while I am playing. What do you think of that? Does it seem viable, and would it be worth it?

Any help you guys can offer would be greatly apprecaited! Thanks!

[80k]

looks like a multimeter would be nice, even if just to check continuity.  do you have one?  they can be had for pretty cheap (20 bucks or so?)

if you are rewiring the board, you'll probably lift a few pads, (i run into that often when i work on old pcb's), so you can trace it out and hard wire it to the right components.

good luck, some of those old EHX pedals are a mess inside, and needlessly so (the russian big muff was a mess of ribbon cable, and when i re-wired it, everything looked a lot cleaner and neater).