Soldering a switch to a surface mount board.

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VanDerchuck
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Post by VanDerchuck »

I asked for a Joyo pedal for Christmas cause I'm a sucker for cheap pedals. I don't know why, I've always just found them fun. But this Sweet Baby Overdrive could be sweeter. I was hoping to solder a switch to the board for some different clipping options. Will the through hold diodes and LED's work with a surface mount board? And is it possible to get the wires to stick to the board? Here's a picture of the board. I'm thinking of going across the spots the LED's are soldered to.

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lolbou
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Post by lolbou »

Seems tight to access the solder pads... Maybe if you remove the potentiometer, you can desolder the diode you want and solder a pair of wires in place. I would used a glue gun to help holding the wires in place while avoiding strain on the solder pads (which are tiny).

Use the through hole diodes on the switch itself, just keep the two wires on the circuit...
- Are you a mod or a rocker?
- Uh, no, I'm a mocker.

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VanDerchuck
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Post by VanDerchuck »

Thanks man. I'm going to remove the pot and then glue down the wires before soldering them to the board. I had planned to leave the wires long enough to get to the breadboard and try some different diodes from there. And then solder them to the switch. Thanks for your help.

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tabbycat
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Post by tabbycat »

VanDerchuck wrote:I asked for a Joyo pedal for Christmas cause I'm a sucker for cheap pedals. I don't know why, I've always just found them fun. But this Sweet Baby Overdrive could be sweeter. I was hoping to solder a switch to the board for some different clipping options. Will the through hold diodes and LED's work with a surface mount board? And is it possible to get the wires to stick to the board? Here's a picture of the board. I'm thinking of going across the spots the LED's are soldered to.
hey vanderchuck, i did a similar thing with a behringer sf300 superfuzz. took out surface mount silicon diodes and added a switch for germanium and silicon through-hole diode options (1n34a and 4148) . easy mod but the headache was getting the switch to fit in the cramped box. no room at all in the with all those electrocaps. follow link below for pics. more and bigger pics earlier in that thread.
https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic ... 10#p245349
https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic ... 10#p244646
got to love turning a decent cheap pedal into a tone beast.

lolbou's advice above for process to follow is spot on. go with that. put two wires onto the solder pads and do the experimenting with different options on the other end of those wires. soldering iron on the board should be quick and hot. no holding iron on the board for ages or it will melt the thing out and you will be left with a door stop.
in my experience of modding behringers and joyos, joyos better to mod as build and boards a bit more solid.

good luck with yours.

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VanDerchuck
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Post by VanDerchuck »

Hey thanks for the replies. I just got back to doing this and man did that work well. I went with 3mm green on one side of the switch and 3mm red on the other. I toasted one of the smt LED's when I tried to remove. Touched it with the iron and melted it to the board. It didn't effect the signal so I just left it there. Thanks for the advice.

Skeet

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