I'm sorry for posting this here, as its not strictly got to do with pedal building or design, but rather repair. I'm also not looking for someone to do this for me completely, but just checking if anybody has had a similar problem and can offer some resolution.
I bought an EHX Black Finger, the "tube" compression pedal, the other day for dirt cheap. I say "tube", as I've read that its a bit of a farce as there's lots and lots of solid-state gain-staging going on in there, but none the less, a good design and a good pedal for the most part (valuable too). I thought it might have been too good to be true, and it looks like I was right. After about 5 hours max of use, its conked out.
Signs and symptoms:
-Was working 100% when I got it.
-Left it on for a day, plugged in and everything. Amp was off, and no signal was going into the pedal, but the power cord was plugged in, so the tubes were heated and the lamps/led's etc were on.
-Turned the amp on and started trying to play through it. True bypass still works fine, when I switch the circuit into the loop, I get this weak gated, clipped signal coming out. No output when I strum lightly and a horrible fuzzy broken tone when I strum hard. Even worse with the pre and post gain turned up.
An obvious thought is that it must be the tubes.. Not so, I replaced both 12AX7's to no resolve.
Before I do an absolute circuit run through (I have a schem), is there anybody that has experienced a similar problem and found a solution? It would mean a lot as it will cut my workload into 1/10th, and I have exams coming up, so would like to get this out of the way.
Thanks in advance,
Makepeace