Speaking of old Boogies - optical switches

[Strandberg Junkie]

Bought a Studio Pre-amp recently and within a month one of the opti-switches died.
Have read since that it's common once those parts get a few decades old.
Now I'm afraid to turn the III on anymore for fear of blowing one.

Was hard enough to replace on the SP, would be 10X harder with a head.
This happen to anyone here? How'd ya get it fixed?

These things:

 

[dave74]

What year was the SP?
I know early tremoverbs suffered from this but mine has had no issues at all. It's a 99.

 

[Strandberg Junkie]

What year was the SP?
I know early tremoverbs suffered from this but mine has had no issues at all. It's a 99.

???
SN: SP-5751

Thing is I'm pretty sure those devices were used in all the Boogies from that era.

 

[dave74]

???
SN: SP-5751

Thing is I'm pretty sure those devices were used in all the Boogies from that era.

Oh yeah they were, but there were higher rates of faulty ldr from a couple bad batches in the mid-90s.

 

[hopkinWFG]

Those are optocouplers... U can get it from amplified parts if not wrong...

 

[glpg80]

Oh yeah they were, but there were higher rates of faulty ldr from a couple bad batches in the mid-90s.

1993 to be exact. I owned a 1994 tremoverb with mark series transformers stock and it didn’t have the defective LDRs.

 

[Strandberg Junkie]

1993 to be exact. I owned a 1994 tremoverb with mark series transformers stock and it didn’t have the defective LDRs.

You think a red stripe III would have good ones in it?

 

[glpg80]

You think a red stripe III would have good ones in it?

What year is it?

My serial number just missed having to replace them all. I got the amp and it was killer but the deal was sour - damaged in shipping and I had to repair it and work on getting the refund for insurance on my own. The original seller got banned from here for it and I sold it for a song and dance because I just hated all it put me through.

 

[Ben Waylin]

I've bought them recently from Small Bear Electronics.

 

[Chubbs]

Are you positive it failed? I had a similar issue with switching that turned out to be a bad ground in my mark 3. They’re pretty crude and I haven’t heard of too many failing.

 

[glip22]

If you are positive it is that part, just clip it out, heat and pull the old leads out. You can solder topside to install a new one. Not difficult at all. Or you can clip the leads off and solder the new part to those leads

 

[Strandberg Junkie]

If you are positive it is that part, just clip it out, heat and pull the old leads out. You can solder topside to install a new one. Not difficult at all. Or you can clip the leads off and solder the new part to those leads

Actually tried this with the first bad one in the pre-amp. The foil tracing is so brittle from age it got cracked during the process.
You really need the direct heat from the underside to do it right.

Someone told me that if you always keep the front panel switch in either one direction or the other you either
just remove the part completely or remove it and add a jumper. Kills any future re-sale though.

@glpg80

19900