Chase Bliss pedal needing fixed

BintyTwanger77

First Jam Pedals, now this…

I was having a play through my pedals this evening and everything was working fine, but then I engaged the IC boost on my CB Brothers, and there was no sound whatsoever, silence. The FET half is fine, but on boost, drive or fuzz, no matter where I have the volume or gain dials, I’m getting no sound from the IC side.

This one is in a wooden box so it’s past its warranty (it’s a year for Chase Bliss, right?), so I’ll have to get it repaired but they’re complex beasts so I’m really not sure what to do, or if there is a suitable U.K. tech who could deal with this. 

Can anyone help?

GavRichList

Try speaking to Paul Uhl at chase bliss if he’s still there. They’re super helpful as a company in my experience - I had a fault with the RKM I used to have, and they fell over themselves to sort it out. 

BintyTwanger77

GavRichList said:

Try speaking to Paul Uhl at chase bliss if he’s still there. They’re super helpful as a company in my experience - I had a fault with the RKM I used to have, and they fell over themselves to sort it out. 

That’s great to know, thanks. I already emailed Zack at tech support, so hopefully they can do something.

GavRichList

Sure they will. Good eggs, there. Don’t have any CB any more, but wouldn’t hesitate to in the future. 

BintyTwanger77

Same here. I’d love to have a Thermae again.

BintyTwanger77

I heard back from Zack at CB (a lovely chap!) and he said the following:

” I wonder if the daughterboard on your pedal might just need to be reseated to make the proper connections. I’ve attached a pic to this email showing the points of connection between the Daughter Board and Mother Board circled in Green, Yellow, and Red.

So what youll want to to do is remove the back plate and hold the pedal with both hands with the circuit board facing up like in the picture.

Then with both thumbs push down simultaneously on the points in green, then yellow, and then red.

This should solidify the connections and hopefully get things sitting right again.”

So I removed the back plate, and the daughterboard looks like it has become dislocated: as you can see the board is sitting higher on the IC side than the JFET side:

I tried pushing down on the points Zack highlighted (not too hard) but it didn’t feel like anything happened: I plugged in the pedal again, and the same issue is there. 

chotu495

Does look high on the left side. When you put the base plate back on, it couldn’t be touching those black things (some look like they say NSL on them) could it? Perhaps try it without the base plate on to rule it out?

Think you’re barking up the right tree, and the daughterboard needs reseating. Yours looks a way off being as flush as the one in the pic he sent. Hopefully an easy fix 

Bolters

Definitely the daughter board issue 

Be very careful putting pressure on the board as is. At that angle there’s a good chance things underneath, out of view, could be misaligned and if you are rough it could cause damage.  

I’d suggest getting the daughter board ‘square’, parallel to the motherboard before trying to fully reseat it. 

BintyTwanger77

Bolters said:

Definitely the daughter board issue 

Be very careful putting pressure on the board as is. At that angle there’s a good chance things underneath, out of view, could be misaligned and if you are rough it could cause damage.  

I’d suggest getting the daughter board ‘square’, parallel to the motherboard before trying to fully reseat it. 

Indeed, and suffice to say I was very careful pushing down, very aware of how intricate the circuitry is and was afraid to break any of it.

Bolters

Did you fix it @BintyTwanger77 ??

Good for you for having a go. It can be daunting if you aren’t used to working on stuff like that. 

And they aren’t cheap, them things! 

BintyTwanger77

Bolters said:

Did you fix it @BintyTwanger77 ??

Good for you for having a go. It can be daunting if you aren’t used to working on stuff like that. 

And they aren’t cheap, them things! 

Not managed yet, mate, I managed to remove the daughterboard safely, but I can’t get the pins on the top left (IC circuit) to sit properly in their contact points. You’re right, they’re not cheap and complicated! Joel and Zack have been brilliant, though, have spoken to then on email and on TGP and they’ve been very reassuring.

Bolters

Bugger!

You sound like you are in good hands though. I hope you can get it sorted without the hassle of shipping it off for repair. 

It makes me want to open up some of my CBA pedals to see if they are similar, must resist the urge to tinker though. 

ICBM

If you can't get it to go back without risking bending the pins, I would remove both boards - that way you should be able to get the pins aligned properly. Then refit it as a single unit.

If there isn't some sort of foam pad on the inside of the pedal bottom to stop the boards separating, fit one.