A while back someone gave me a Behringer TR100 tremolo pedal (in with something I bought, IIRC - it might have been Prog or Doog) I tried it out at the time and it worked OK but I had no real need for it so I put it on the shelf for a few years. I pulled it out last week as I was thinking of putting a pedalboard of discrete pedals together and it was just dead. Extinct. An ex-pedal. Bereft of life.. etc. So I looked at it closely and noticed signs of corrosion on the input socket. I took it apart, and found signs of liquid ingress on the input side..and signs of corrosion. Hopefully, I squirted Servisol (similar to Deoxit) into the input and power sockets. It didn't help.
I could not source a circuit diagram but Behringer's pedals tend to have a similar power control layout with the battery positive being disconnected if you plug in an external PSU and the power ground circuit being connected along the shank of the instrument plug. I tried polishing the contacts of the instrument socket with Brasso and a cotton bud - no effect. Plugging in and unplugging an instrument cable I started to get good connectivity on the socket, but still no connectivity between the battery negative, power socket negative and the input jack.
So time to remove the input jack and ...
- TR100-corrosion.JPG (161.47 KiB) Viewed 241 times
At the top right you can see the copper has been completely corroded away taking out the track that provides the connection between the input socket, power socket and battery clip. So I'll need to rewire that. You can also see top left where another hole has been etched in the copper under one of the socket feet.
Amazing what damage a little bit of beverage can do, even if it seems to be OK at the time. Maybe it was a cola - they contain phosphoric acid.
