crazy sounds coming from unhoused Boss pedals

[sjaltenb]

Well i gutted the CS2 and CE2 the other day to make it ready to go in the cornish board, and unlike my other pedals that sound just fine once unhoused, the boss ones just put out some crazy crazy noise and doesnt even pass the signal thorugh. All i did was take the board and jacks out, cut the battery cables and swap out the switch with a heavy duty one. Nothing else has changed, all the wires are the same

whats the deal with this? anyone know?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Some gear requires the input to be shorted to ground when there is no signal plugged in. That might be the case here.

[sjaltenb]

must be... i just ressembled the pedal back to normal and it worked perfectly...then i simply unscrewed the side jacks to start going through all the possibilities of what could be causing it. I am not sure, and am new to grounding, but it seems like the actual metal part of the jack must be touching the chasis of the pedal, becuase there is a ring around that part that is then connected to the board.

Could be wrong..im about to do some googling. Anyone know of a good chart that shows which connections are which on different styles of jacks?

[MartyMart]

It's probably just the sleeve that needs "earth" unles the Boss black square socket has a
metal "sheath" around it ?
My Boss TU-2 input socket has one, perhaps keeping the digital ground separate from analog
ground ?
Ground the sleeve " as normal" and see of that does it .

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

MartyMart is likely onto it.
I don't advise looking up socket pinouts on the web. The reason is, I have seen sockets that looked identical, but..... the pinouts were different!
Always use a continuity test. Test with a jack plugged in, and without the jack. I keep an unused stereo jack on the bench, so I can test easily, including seeing what is happening with power switching (if any).

[ljkowal]

I am building a 16 space pedal board and took apart the Boss ce2 last night. Same issue. I shoud be working on it tonight.  If I find our answer I will post right away for ya. Please do the same if you find it.

[sjaltenb]

Wow this forum is great... hey while you are taking apart the CE2 I need a favor!!!

There are 4 orange ceramic disk caps down in the lower left corner if the wires are on top... they are in this order

X1  Y1
X2  Y2

thats the very  bottom left hand corner. X1 and X2 are smaller and of the same value...and Y1 is (if i remember correctly) 471K. Is Y2 also a 471K?? it has broken and i need to order a replacement. Thanks!!

After looking at the jacks and reading up on stuff, im almost positive this was the problem. Let me know what you discover though!

[ljkowal]

   You got it on the cap. I'm reading your cap (bottom right of the four) it is a 471.  However; don't kill yourself looking for 471.  The value on the schematic just says 470P.  To get the schematic, go to http://www.freeinfosociety.com/electronics/schempage.php?cat=1 Look down the list and you will find every pedal you ever knew of!  On the CE2 schem the caps you are looking at are on the lower right corner just above the two transistors Q6 and Q7. They are C24 andC25. Below you will see someone scratched out 4??P and replaced with 220P those are the smaller ones you mentioned.

As to the wiring problem, I had forgotten to connect the wire #3 over to all the grounds.  I "found" an aluminum street sign and cut out 6x3 plates that are the faces for the pedals.  This leaves some alert figuring for input-output grounds.  I have eliminated all the jacks and used some two wire male/female connectors to join the pedals.  Your grounds for both IN/OUT can be joined together and connected to #12 on the board.  The only time you don't want to join them is if you notice a nonconductive material isolating the jack from the case.