So I didn't hesitate when someone was selling a "kinda working" OD808 for $45 shipped online. Their description was that the sound sometimes cuts out and the knobs sound scratchy. Seems to me like the potentiometers need a little cleaning out...the same issue with the AD80 I fixed not too long ago! And flipped!
The pedal came in just yesterday and I had a chance to open it on 4/17. Actually ended up being a more complicated fix, but stupidly, I didn't photograph the journey. But here's what I did:
- Started by lubricating the pots to eliminate scratchiness. I noticed after playing through the pedal that there was definite potentiometer scratching in there. So I went to work lubing the pots.
- I noticed there was some "play" when I pulled on the potentiometer shaft, more than normal, which led me to believe that the potentiometers were actually PCB-mounted. Makes sense in such a complicated but compact pedal (picture below of the inside of an OD808 and a PCB-mounted potentiometer).
- Inspected the potentiometers. Sure enough, a couple of them were not fully tightened down. On some potentiometers, the shaft and threads are held on by some bent metal, which had loosened and allowed the whole metal piece to separate slightly from the rest of the potentiometer, resulting in sometimes the pot would spin without changing anything. It took about 15 minutes to solve the problem and have the pots clamped down properly and with the correct rotation movement, but I got there!
- Reassembled the pedal, spun the potentiometers a few dozen times to loosen any oxidation, and tested it out.
Perfect! The fix worked like a charm. Now, for the low-low cost of $45, I have a pedal that's fully working perfectly, that usually costs $150 new. Woo!
And this will be my next flip. I simply cannot resist selling things that can likely double my investment!
~C
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