The Foot Pedal Repair

Gosh, this took too long to get to. I did this repair on April 27, 2010, and have not written about it as promised for almost three years. Result: successful revival of weapon of sweet distraction. OK, here is the revelation:

The first photo shows the foot pad pulled off the orange housing bay, and the top part of the pad slipped out of the enclosure and placed to the left side of the enclosure. In the black enclosure is the circuit board revealed in photo 2 below.

On the the right side of photo 2, you are looking at a firm ivory colored piece of plastic with a black rectangle rubber with a conductive set of bars printed on to it. This conductive pattern is placed at a 90° angle to the gold patterned circuit board revealed on the left. The circuit board consists of two disconnected circuit patterns connected to two wires that lead back into the main Patch of Shades enclosure. When the conductive black rubber is pressed against the circuit board lines, the circuit closes, the resistance is lowered as more pressure is added. 

 Photo 3 shows why my Patch of Shades was not working. A line of corrosion had made its way across the circuit lines, interfering with the pressure pad.

 Some of the corrosion might have made its way onto the conductive pad as well.

 Water, toe sweat, circuit board cleaning fluid, manufacturing by-product? We will never know...

 Scrubbed both boards all clean with an acetone based circuit board cleaning fluid (probably not so good for the atmosphere, but cleans better than alcohol).

 The key to easily putting it all back together...hot glue gun!!!! A hot glue gun will make it easy to re-wrap each piece of faux leather tightly enough, and also makes it easy to firmly remount the pad into the orange foot pedal area. Also, hot glue, while being a good tight hold, can also be peeled off and done over easily. I took advantage of this feature of hot glue several times during this repair, as I initially did not place the conductive pad in the correct orientation with the circuit board. If you are attempting this repair, careful observation of orientation during take apart will save you trouble later on.

The reassembled but not yet glued down pad is seen in the last picture.

In my next posting (whenever that occurs), I will upload some MP3s of the sounds that the various settings on the Patch of Shades avails me.