Advice on troubleshooting this Korg Toneworks Dynamic Delay

[ExpAnonColin]

It's digital... TONS of ICs all over the place, quite obviously digital.  Here's the prognosis:

When plugged into the wall, and when operated on batteries, BOTH LEDs lights, the effect and the program ones.  Hitting the "effect" switch turns the "effect" LED off, but the "Program" switch does nothing.  No alteration of the guitar comes into play no matter what I do to it.  I opened it up to check to see if it was something simple like a pulled out wire or something.. Nope, everything looks fine.  I tried hooking the Program switch's terminals together simulating the switch being on and off, but it didn't work.  Could this be a bad switch?  I don't even know how the effect works when it's fixed, which is a bit of a disadvantage.  All wires look fine, all switches are on fine, but the pedal does nothing but light up... Good for show, I guess

Anyone have any ideas?  Is it a switching logic problem, do you think?

Repairable?

-Colin

[ExpAnonColin]

Woops, forgot to say, by putting together a few of the ICs around the switching area, I got the "Program" LED to change to orange... and then again, back to Green, but again, no sound at all.  And, by putting together 2 of the terminals on the large central IC, I can get it to turn red and.  But never off.  Always no sound.

-Colin

[dougharrison]

I wish I could help you, but I can only relate:  I had a Korg Toneworks delay with the same problem after I  bought it new, so I returned it to the music store for a new one.  It played well for a few years until I fried it by soldering a lead onto the circuitboard for powering an aux LFO.  I really miss that pedal now.

Sorry to hear about your troubles...

[cb]

I have 2 of these - and they are soooo versatile - which is what I think led to their demise (unfortunately). See, musicians (present company excluded, of course) are a simple bunch - they like fewer knobs to confuse them. This magnificent pedal has no fewer than 8 parameters (4 knobs, but each knob sets 2 parameters depending on whether the toggle switch is up or down).

I find the HiDamp (hi frequency roll-off on the repeats) and the Ducking absolutely indispensable. I don't think the Predelay and LoFi settings are necessary. (maybe a reissue could do away with these!)

In a nutshell, the effect is either ON or Off as indicated by the Effect LED, and, when ON, one of 2 presets is active, as indicated by the Program LED (red or green?? I think).

The first thing to try is unplug everything - patch cords and power supply. Then take the batteries out. Plug the power and patch cords back in and try that. Simplistic, admittedly, but sometimes a "reboot" is what it takes.

Don't forget the power supply is "tip negative" (just in case you're using a replacement power supply)!

If that (probably) didn't work...
Without having looked inside (yet) I suspect there must be one or more CMOS chips inside which are sensitive to static discharge. My plan of attack would be to identify the chips and replace them one by one. BUT don't replace chips that would contain programmable code such as microcontrollers or EPROMS (if there are any) since they need to have the code downloaded (programmed) into them to function.

What we need are schematics and, if any of the chips in there are programmable, we need the source code (or at least a downloadable binary).

I really wish Korg would reissue this one... sigh...

[ExpAnonColin]

I already tried different power adapters and new batteries.  This pedal didn't break on me, I traded it for a broken pedal... Broken for broken, I never got to play it when it was working.  As I said, I looked in side, I see the EPROM, but most of the rest of the chips are somewhat identifyable.  Should I try Korg?

It's (sort of) good to see someone else with the same problem, but I wishI could fix this one... really want to have a third delay.

In terms of programming the chips, I could certainly not do it.

-Colin