Fasel Inductor with broken pin...

[Timfever]

 

So let's say, hypothetically speaking, that you were putting a red Fasel Inductor into an old Vox V847, and you somehow broke one of its pins?

 

Not that anyone's done that or anything. Least of all me! YUCK YUCK!

 

Hypothetically speaking again, anyone have the slightest idea how you might go about salvaging it?

[WRGKMC]

Depends on how it was broken and how badly. If the pin just pulled out of the plastic and you had access to the wire to solder, you could use an old tech trick. Cut a paper clip for a new pin, glue it back in the hole with CA or epoxy, solder the wire to the new pin, then put some more epoxy over it.

If its really screwed up, then you pay the cost of learning how to be a good tech and spring $10 for a new one.

Chances are an Electronic tech wouldn't break a terminal because he knows to use a solder sucker when removing and old one and he knows how to solder an new one in so doesn't overheat and damage it in the first place. Plastic melts faster than solder and If the pins are overheated, it will melt the coil base and the coil wires that attach to the pins. This is unlikely to happen If he's soldering the pins on the back of the board that solder to the circuit pads. If anything its easy to lift a pad desoldering. I've glued hundreds of pads back down over the years and If the pads are damaged, you bridge them with thin wire, and yes a paper clip when you're in a bind. I've even used staples carefully cut and shaped to get into thin spots. Single core hookup wire works best though. Using a little hot glue tacking down a longer bridge between pads keeps things tidy.

Any tech worth his salt learns all these tricks over time. If he does regular gear repairs he comes across repairs done by other techs or factory mods and he picks and chooses which are most sensible to add to his tool box of tricks. Believe me I've seen some really wild ones in my time. Some were horrible and had to be redone, some left your mouth hanging open and you had to figure out how it could possibly have worked for so long and others are just pure genius, the obvious work of a highly experienced master.

I do allot of field work and I'm faced with situations where a piece of gear can't be left down while parts are ordered. I am a master rigger when it comes to keeping a piece of gear limping along till I can get whet I need to do a proper permanent fix. Its not always electronics either. Its often times the mechanical items customers come in contact with most. Switches, knobs, plugs, frames etc. Ive even hand manufactured parts that were broken and from bits of metal to make the part I didn't have at the time on more occasions than I care to remember.

There was one story that tops them all though that's worth sharing. When I was a young tech working as a field tech we got a call from the Navy to fix a copier on a ship. I took along all the spare parts that normally wear out along which they would purchase as spares. I was taken aboard and escorted to the machine. They had it bolted down to a table so it wouldn't slide off in rough seas. I trained their tech as I maintained the machine and made him aware of all the common areas that would fail and give him all the tricks and tweaks I knew. Back then the machines were mostly analog and creating an image was done by a motor driven glass platen that would move over a lamp and reflect off mirrors and shine onto an electrostatically charged drum which leaves a charged image of the original. The drum is dusted with black toner, then it gets placed on paper and melted by heated rollers to produce a permanent image.

When I got into the optical section, I immediately noticed it has a funky looking lamp in there. The tech informed me the lamp had blown out when they were at sea and the engineers aboard "Made a new one". They blew the glass tube made a new tungsten element and filled the lamp with halogen gas and the dam thing worked. This would have been difficult enough making a normal light bulb but to manufacturer a lamp that was 18" long, was about 10mm wide and have a spiral element that reached from end to end without touching the sides was purely a work of art. 

Not only did the lamp function, but it put out the proper amount of light from end to end to produce a proper image. Since it functioned properly, I left it in there and just gave them the backup lamps as spares.

Military ships like that have complete machine shops and they can fix anything from a broken bolt to a nuclear missile. Making a halogen lamp was probably kindergarten stuff to them.

Its one of those experiences (along with thousands of others) that make you realize there are allot of talented people out there who see the glass as half full and have the ability to place mind over matter. Some are a challenge and some are normal everyday things you run into on a daily basis. 

Repairs comes down to cost vs. time. In many cases its cheaper now to just swap a board vs. repairing a board. Not only are the circuits so small you need a microscope to even see the contacts, figuring out exactly which component is bad takes time. If it isn't the simplest of problems, you simply take 5 minutes and swap the board with a new one. That's the way most electronics are now. Antique musical gear still have larger components and circuits so you can repair at component level but most new gear is all disposable. Manufacturers actually prefer this because it keeps their circuit designs secure and only they have the specialized tools and repair techs qualified to repair them. Reverse engineering is an expensive process so there's less chance of others hacking their designs especially when they are loaded with fake parts to mislead the hackers.  

[Timfever]

Dude, in my wildest dreams, I could not have asked for a more kick ass response. That was very helpful and not just re my main issue.

 

I deeply appreciate the tips, info, and helpful attitude.

 

If I weren't so impatient to get my old Vox reissue working with the TBP and Clyde Pot that I also got with this kit and installed pretty easily (much to my shock and surprise!), I would have already ordered another Fasel Inductor (FWIW, mine got messed up from having to bend it a little, which you REALLY have to be careful doing--I ended up with a sharp angle in mine somehow, and trying to work around that is what did me in). but this is pretty much my first true "mod" and easily the most time I've spent with a soldering iron (at least besides installing a car stereo or amplifier...) in my life--especially within such a comically unreasonable and tiny space. I will probably end up having to get another Fasel Inductor but...MAN, I just can't take any more suspense!  Thanks again for the tips.

[Timfever]

If I can bend your ear one more time re fasel inductors and that pin issue (BTW, I fashioned another pin out of a large staple! who knows if it's gonna work, but it's connected and glued in, so at least I got some valuable experience), the kit I got says nothing about resoldering the other side of the board where the pins go in after installing the fasel inductor, but I figure that's either a good idea or even mandatory...?