veatch Posted January 24 Posted January 24 Posted a while back looking for a replacement tone board for a Vintage S. Spent some time educating myself on SMD technology - I've always been a through hole kinda guy myself... Anyway, with some help from AI, I think we found the little bugger that was causing the problem. Now just waiting for the parts. 9 1 Quote
veatch Posted January 25 Author Posted January 25 I've been taking advantage of the cell phone camera to zoom in and follow traces. I was really trying to avoid getting a pair of these... 9 Quote
velorush Posted January 25 Posted January 25 As regrettable as going Erlewine might be from a fashion sense, those things actually work very well! Just lock the door, pull them out of the secret drawer, do your business and put them safely away. Remember the converse of 'pics or it didn't happen' is true, as well. 2 1 Quote
veatch Posted January 25 Author Posted January 25 Pulled the JFET. From the left, third column in, third row below the pot. Biggest challenge was figuring out WTF it was. Markings on it were non-deterministic. (P01) Had to trace enough of the circuit out to determine if it was a pnp or a source follower JFET circuit. AI was stuck on pnp, but given the signal input on pin 3, JFET was the right (i hope) answer. Also had to order a new tip for the Weller. No screwdriver tip for this job. : ) 9 1 Quote
veatch Posted February 16 Author Posted February 16 Well, the waiting is the hardest part right? Got the replacement tip for the Weller. Unfortunately, it didn't fit well in my old Weller station. The pencil was worn enough that I didn't take new tips kindly. So I had to order a new pencil. That took a while. Got everything in this week, replaced the JFET, but still no output. : / Back to troubleshooting. Looks like the bias point on the replacement JFET was too far off to work in this circuit. Everything else looked correct, so I replaced the JFET one more time (glad I bought 10 of these little dogs...) Next thing you know, Bob's your uncle. This thing's working now. I'll reassemble the Vintage S hopefully tomorrow. It's good to get this board back to it's original state! 15 Quote
Bennyboy-UK Posted February 16 Posted February 16 Nice one - I want to get my one fixed - but that kind of work is waaaaaay beyond me!! 1 Quote
veatch Posted February 21 Author Posted February 21 Okay, so things just got interesting... Number one - I did not keep the pickup set the guitar came with. Scratching my head, trying to figure out how i let that happen. Then, I realized/remembered, the pickups that were in it when I got it were not the original pickups. Yup, that's why I moved them on. Now I'm tracking down period corrects to put back in. : / 2 of the 3 will be here Monday. Still looking for the third. The bigger change is that the only thing I never liked about the guitar was the uber-thin neck. It's under 0.8 inch end to end. So I went ahead and ordered a Musikraft neck with a full Les Paul type carve - 0.87 at the first fret and 0.97 at the 12th. It'll take a good 4 to six weeks before it gets in. I'm looking forward to what the guitar sounds and feels like with it. Anyone have any insight on how to make a decal for the logo? ( @kizanski ?) I have an idea as an homage. 3 Quote
veatch Posted April 10 Author Posted April 10 Musikraft neck is in. Beautiful chunk of wood. 14 Quote
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