Are pedals worth repairing?

[OldGtrGuy]

Nothing valuable or rare, always listed for $200 used. But are they even selling idk? I couldn't get $150 for mine last year.

Lone Wolf Audio Endless Blockade, it is in face the best gate ive used regarding the sustain, transparency and gating but something is wrong with it for sure.

To my untrained eye all of the joints and components look to be in tact.

Symptoms: a while back if turning off and on, sometimes the switch wouldn't work. Fast forward to today and the pedal is cutting in and out (actually thought it was my amp and that is a whole other headache of a story) and also again, sometimes the pedal will be engaged but does nothing at all.

Could be something as simple as the Footswitch or a jack, could be worse.

Is a $150 worth repairing? I have no idea what people are charging for this service plus $30 shipping back and forth.

 

[creep66]

Usually something simple, like u said the jack etc. If you don't know how to trace a circuit take it to a TV repair guy. They can fix it for probably 20 to 40 bucks.

 

[griff10672]

It's most likely the footswitch .... 99% of the time the first thing to go on a pedal .... especially if it's an old school mechanical switch and not a " soft touch " connected to a relay . They take a beating .... and usually the solder joints will start to go first ... causing your symptoms

now fixing it as you mentioned is a balancing act of being worth it ... your spot on that it's going to be 30 bucks straight out of the gate to ship it round trip ... 20 if your not to far from the tech

then you're looking at bench time .... which can be all over the place depending on who you send it too

what I usually do is give a set price to fix it .... even if it takes me three hours .... you have to keep it worth it for the customer

I try to keep the total cost with shipping at half the value of a used version ..... cause once you go past that ... even I would just buy a new " used " one

 

[Jack Luminous]

10 minutes soldering a new 3 bucks 3pdt switch will solve your problem. Definitely worth it ! I love my Endless Blockade, it's a good gate.

 

[Shask]

Yeah, probably just the footswitch going bad. Easy fix.

To test, click it on and off about 100 times in a row. See if it does anything different sometimes. If so, the switch is probably bad.

 

[OldGtrGuy]

Yeah, probably just the footswitch going bad. Easy fix.

To test, click it on and off about 100 times in a row. See if it does anything different sometimes. If so, the switch is probably bad.

Thats exactly what happened initially. I guess it's worth trying lol. That should be interesting. As @griff10672 mentioned, it is the old school click switch.

Any recommendations on where to order a replacement? Mojotone or switchcraft maybe? Not even sure what to get tbh. I have a solder kit and could give it a shot.

 

[griff10672]

Thats exactly what happened initially. I guess it's worth trying lol. That should be interesting. As @griff10672 mentioned, it is the old school click switch.

Any recommendations on where to order a replacement? Mojotone or switchcraft maybe? Not even sure what to get tbh. I have a solder kit and could give it a shot.

In the US .... I would just get one from Love My Switches ..... you want a latching 3PDT

do you have a pic of the inside of the pedal ??? I was doing research on it ..... and I guess it's been ousted as a Fortin Zuul clone

 

[OldGtrGuy]

In the US .... I would just get one from Love My Switches ..... you want a latching 3PDT

do you have a pic of the inside of the pedal ??? I was doing research on it ..... and I guess it's been ousted as a Fortin Zuul clone

 

[OldGtrGuy]

In the US .... I would just get one from Love My Switches ..... you want a latching 3PDT

do you have a pic of the inside of the pedal ??? I was doing research on it ..... and I guess it's been ousted as a Fortin Zuul clone

Question for you. That middle pic is the Footswitch. You can see a few of the lugs need to connect to each other.

What is used to connect them? Some type of wire or filament? Surely that isn't solder stretched out from one lug to another is it?

 

[griff10672]

Question for you. That middle pic is the Footswitch. You can see a few of the lugs need to connect to each other.

What is used to connect them? Some type of filament? Surely that isn't solder stretched out from one lug to another is it?

it's just buss wire .... or a piece of solid strand wire with the jacket removed ... some guys will just use the leg of a resistor they clipped also ..

 

[Jack Luminous]

The Endless Blockade as well as the Guptech Guul/Sun are supposedly Zuul clones (itself a clone from some Marshall amp noise gate), but I have both and they sound and react differently to my ears. I prefer the Guul because it's smaller an simpler but the Blockade does sound better.

 

[griff10672]

The Endless Blockade as well as the Guptech Guul/Sun are supposedly Zuul clones (itself a clone from some Marshall amp noise gate), but I have both and they sound and react differently to my ears. I prefer the Guul because it's smaller an simpler but the Blockade does sound better.

Those " THAT4301P " chips are a pain in the ass to find ..... or I'd do a version too

 

[MadAsAHatter]

Since you mentioned it's not a valuable pedal...
If anything it would be worth it to tinker for some experience. It's not working properly so you might as well give a shot at fixing it yourself. Worst thing that can happen is it still doesn't work. That's how I look at it anyway.

 

[Shask]

In the US .... I would just get one from Love My Switches ..... you want a latching 3PDT

do you have a pic of the inside of the pedal ??? I was doing research on it ..... and I guess it's been ousted as a Fortin Zuul clone

Yep, I would just get a basic 3PDT Stomp switch from Love My Switches. That will be easy to just order one. Just replace it, solder each lug, one by one to match.

 

[Shask]

Those " THAT4301P " chips are a pain in the ass to find ..... or I'd do a version too

I have built 3 of them, and one of those had the Endless Blockade mods to have 3 knobs. Most of the newer gates are based on this circuit. I think the SMT version of the THAT chip is easy to source.

 

[70 Mach 1]

you can try analog man and see what Mike has to say. haven't used him but the nuts on TGP give all good reviews

https://www.analogman.com/#repair

 

[BeZo]

I would take it all apart and touch all the solder joints yourself. I fixed a few pedals (*cough* EHX *cough*) by doing that. There is "good enough", which sometimes isn't good enough, and then there is "I took my time and made it pretty" where you get those nice fat shiny solder joints that make you proud of yourself.

But yeah, it's probably a bad switch. I would replace the switch, and solder it all up while you are in there.

 

[csguy0]

Nothing valuable or rare, always listed for $200 used. But are they even selling idk? I couldn't get $150 for mine last year.

Lone Wolf Audio Endless Blockade, it is in face the best gate ive used regarding the sustain, transparency and gating but something is wrong with it for sure.

To my untrained eye all of the joints and components look to be in tact.

Symptoms: a while back if turning off and on, sometimes the switch wouldn't work. Fast forward to today and the pedal is cutting in and out (actually thought it was my amp and that is a whole other headache of a story) and also again, sometimes the pedal will be engaged but does nothing at all.

Could be something as simple as the Footswitch or a jack, could be worse.

Is a $150 worth repairing? I have no idea what people are charging for this service plus $30 shipping back and forth.

It is worth repairing for the sole fact that you'll learn a little more about what makes it tick (maybe that's not your thing?).

 

[OldGtrGuy]

It is worth repairing for the sole fact that you'll learn a little more about what makes it tick (maybe that's not your thing?).

That really isn't too important to me, id rather build an amp lol (I would probably die in the process)

But its more like, the Blockade is definitely better than the Gstring X or any other gate ive tried type of thing