I step on my petals, I step on my cords. I step on equipment from Montgomery Words. Sound so fine from airline. All broken I no longer rhyme. Thanks for fixing it Fran from this one man.
A beveled open ended wrench and the correct size nut driver. Simple little this like that make your life easier. I also liked the crowbar circuit explanation.
I once repaired laser levels that had alligator clips to run from a 12V lead-acid battery. They used a bridge rectifier on the 12v power to keep reverse polarity from blowing them up. They also had a 120v cord that used two different pins in the connector to feed a power supply section. A customer forgot his AC cord one day. He put a plug on the battery cable and blew up _every single board_ . Having worked in repair, it warms my heart to see an engineer who knows how to fix things. We'd often figure things out once instruments had been in service for a while, but the manufacturers wouldn't listen to us when we reported what we'd found out. I remember when a DeVry graduate from Kansas figured out a momentary voltage drop from excessive current draw on power-up. The engineers back in Japan HATED admitting that the resistor he added in series was an elegant and effective fix. They took six months testing it and then took credit in the service bulletin. "Engineering has found..."
Many thanks Fran. Your crowbar circuit solution is fantastic, simple and effective. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. Much appreciated.
One of the engineers I worked with at TRW years ago said this, and I paraphrase: "It's very hard to idiot-proof any product you design. Why? It's because idiots are so clever". She was a very smart lady and, alas, passed on several years ago. God be with you Karen.
@@bielanski2493 Could you provide me with a slightly more verbose yet understandable definition of Adam's Law? It would help an intrigued/uninformed layman like me haha
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” - Douglas Adams
So, someone now has a Frantone pedal with a RUclips video of the creator repairing it (Damage due to user negligence, of course). That makes it more valuable and talk about bragging rights!! :-)
@@FranLab Hello Fran, one more question please. What value or type of PTC do You use; In my experiance they are often just a little to slow and so the semiconducters blow nevertheless :-/
@@tvelektron Hi tvektron, the zener should protect the electronics even if the thermistor is slow. The zener is very fast! The value of the thermistor depends on your circuit current.
@@tvelektron I suppose nothing is 100% but they do seem to perform just fine for this application. There are lots of choices with thermistors so you can pick the one that meets your specific design considerations.
That PTC device is an excellent method of protection against overvoltage and incorrect polarity but it is not a crowbar, it's just a voltage clamp. A crowbar is a device that actively shorts out the power supply in order to blow a fuse or current limit the supply, as if you dropped a real crowbar across the bus bars. It normally involves a Thyristor or some other active power component and once triggered it doesn't let go until the source of power goes away.
Great to hear that exhaust fan, so you're not inhaling the solder fumes. I loved that smell as a teen, but I imagine it's hazardous - particularly in quantity.
My de solder gun came with a very long drill bit and a pin vice to ream the stuck solder out, works very well and dose not take half an hour just a few minuets.
Loved seeing the insides of one of your pedals! My Hakko FR-300 clogs occasionally but they package a 1.0mm stiff wire tool that works well for pushing out solder plugs. The worst clog is when the leg of some component breaks off and lodges inside the nozzle. Then you break out the 1.0mm twist drill bit!
spot on about the sockets and contacts in generala. I do tube stuff, and by far the biggest problems I've had are with switches and tube sockets. Fixed plenty of tuners by simply pulling tubes and cleaning the sockets and pins.
Sockets for old-school DIP ics are often a pain in the patootey! In the 80s I used to service huge video effects crate for a TV Station that contained ten 2 ft square boards absolutely packed in with 1000s of asics & standard TTL. The HEAT(!) the thing generated (it used 2 x 5V 300A powersupplies) , even with massive fullspeed fans saw the ics often 'walk' out of their sockets making for parts of the system to suddenly stop doing its thang! Regular procedure = pull each board, place on large flat surface & push home every chip into its socket (which made a nice click). We had to do this every month for the life of the crate.
Was it an Ampex ADO or maybe a Abekas A-57? I used to edit with an Abekas A-34. If it started acting weird, I'd pull out the boards and do a chip-push.
@@larrysbk GVG Kaleidoscope... 4 effects chains in 3 Crates that were used looped through each other just to run the News opener... (Live)! & during the day accessible by all edit suites for whatever art a Producer could conjure up.... Yeah those were they days & now it al happens in cheap as PC.
4 года назад
Hi Fran. I had the same desoldering tool (now I changed to hakko). When it stuck at the beginning I used my soldering gun to heat it from inside. It always worked for me in seconds without having it 15 minutes parked on a transformer :-)
This one finally made me become a patron. This is content I like. Would like to score one of your old products though I'm a digital effects kind of guy.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the crowbar being stollen, the pedal industry got lazy. Nobody makes anything new and unique, they just keep tweaking what’s already been done... nice to see a new video Fran! :D
Cool! I've never bathed a pedal in beer or plugged in the wrong power adapter but maybe I'm just a little bit more protective of my gear. I have had drunks step on and bend a cable end or two.
I didn't know you were the Fran in Frantone! Thanks for sharing the bit about the crowbar! It's funny you mention maintaining input voltage for headroom, I'm working on a pedal where I've bootstrapped an opamp's power rails and I'm reliably getting like 11v of swing off of 9v with some transistors and 47uf caps.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I recall seeing a Frantone pedal. Having never heard of it before I passed it up as undesirable. Boy was I wrong, I should kick myself for that major screw up and I should have purchased it right then and there. I had no Idea of the very thoughtful process lovingly dedicated to your builds. I am impressed..
What other Company can you think of that will repair their 15 year old products? Makes me want to go out and buy a Frantone pedal, but I think I might need a guitar first!
Look for a Firefly Guitar on Amazon (when they are available) best cheap guitar on the market. This is the one I bought (link below). This model can play many types of genres of music so it's a good starter. They can have ruff cosmetic blemishes but for $140 it can't be beat. There are some occasional duds some people get but just return it (Amazon makes it easy to return by taking it to a UPS store with no shipping cost.) There is an owners group on Facebook if you want to talk to some owners of the Firefly models to attest to what you can get for your money. www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MJH9G7J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Cannot believe that we still don't have better desoldering tools. Lovely vid Fran, I love how you stick with your products. That's the real proof of their quality.
Oh, My, God, a lovely intelligent woman who MAKES GUITAR PEDALS! My next thought was literally "I wonder if she is married?" (and as childish as that sounds, I'm just being honest, i really did think that thought). Fran, you may be the coolest woman I have seen on YT in a looooong time. Every day, there's a blessing!
Hate to say it but I had never heard of you before coming across this video. So I had to go check your fuzz pedals, then went to your art website. You drew Gus Grissom??!! He was my favorite astronaut when I was a kid and I was crushed when Apollo 1 burned up on the launchpad. I also noticed a Carl Sagan book behind you in a different video. I love his "Pale Blue Dot", it brings a lot of perspective and reminds me just how small we really are in the grand scheme of things. I'm no electronics whiz but I do play guitar so I guess I'll have to sub and go search for one of your creations. Cheers from Vermont.
Good Evening Fran, I suspect you are correct about the liquid, but I have also seen stains and strange solder results when someone has used acid core instead of rosin core solder in a repair.
I really enjoy your videos Fran. Well done, such a fun channel. Never know what you’ll see! I would love to find one of these vintage frantone pedals someday.
Something sorely lacking in today's world, a crafts-person who stands by their work, even when it was obviously not do to a failure in the build. Take care and God Bless from Florida.
I never used a "Classic Fuzz" but have always wanted to try it after using a "Flashback Fuzz". I like to use a fuzz after my heavy metal as a way to make it a bit heavier for certain parts of a song.
Id love to see your method for both PCB manufacture and the enamel or what coating it is that's you've applied to that PCB. It looks as though astronauts could wager their lives on that PCB. I've had the same trouble with my desoldering gun, THANKS for the tube heating tip! If I get clogged solder in my chamber I use a little pin vise and a drill bit just big enough to clear the solder out by twisting it after removing the tip from the gun. I've thought of trying to buy an extra couple tips and cutting one just a little shorter as an experiment just to test whether shortening that tube would possibly help to avoid that scenario. The replacements are expensive. If price was no object I'd just drill it out even more there at the rear end of the tube and see how that might help! NICE PEDALS ILL KEEP MY EYE OUT FOR A FRANTONE! THANKS FOR SHARING, GREAT TIPS!!
Fran, I just came across you channel and it all seems rather interesting. This video is really interesting, very clearly explained, also the video is really clear. Looking forward to watching more. Best, LSR
I just started to built my own pedals, Its always awesome see other trans peeps doing things other than in the community stuffs. I am a tinker type of person. Ie fixing basic electronics and car overhauls, making lightsabers, brewing beer, cosplay and ceramics. Yep, I like playing in the mud. I wish I could afford your pedals. I have my eye on that vibutron but I also like the hi ball and cream puff. That square wave makes me happy. I picked up the guitar again, working on my megar skills. So to keep me interested, I am building pedals to add some different sounds to the mix. Also I am in cat scan school. So I better be focusing on that, so I can afford one of vibz. also I feel you with the tremors.
I have different way to unclog desoldering gun. I stick thick bare copper wire into nozzle and turn heating on. Wire will transfer heat from the tip to the blob usually located at the other end of pipe.
I have never heard of this pedal brand but she seems like such a cool down-to-earth woman I kind of want to own some now
Look them up, OGs in the boutique pedal game
Fran is a legend. A titan. Humanity is better for her existence.
have you ever heard about elcetro harmonix? She worked there and redesinged the 2000 NYC Big muff.
I gotta get one. Nothing is as good as a guitar, a good pedal (or two), and moving air with an amp; an amp heavier than a bag of my regrets.
It’s so nice to see a super-competent person working on something and solving problems along the way. Excellent video.
That frantone crowbar is freaking genius. You are a dang circuit/pedal genius.
She's just honest! Not very often seen in the business.
One of my all-time favorite fuzz pedals. One of the best fuzz pedals ever made.
searches the Deep Trip Fuzz pedals. They are also fantastic to.
Gosh whoever makes these pedals sure is creative as all heck.
I step on my petals, I step on my cords. I step on equipment from Montgomery Words. Sound so fine from airline. All broken I no longer rhyme. Thanks for fixing it Fran from this one man.
A beveled open ended wrench and the correct size nut driver. Simple little this like that make your life easier.
I also liked the crowbar circuit explanation.
I once repaired laser levels that had alligator clips to run from a 12V lead-acid battery. They used a bridge rectifier on the 12v power to keep reverse polarity from blowing them up. They also had a 120v cord that used two different pins in the connector to feed a power supply section. A customer forgot his AC cord one day. He put a plug on the battery cable and blew up _every single board_ . Having worked in repair, it warms my heart to see an engineer who knows how to fix things. We'd often figure things out once instruments had been in service for a while, but the manufacturers wouldn't listen to us when we reported what we'd found out. I remember when a DeVry graduate from Kansas figured out a momentary voltage drop from excessive current draw on power-up. The engineers back in Japan HATED admitting that the resistor he added in series was an elegant and effective fix. They took six months testing it and then took credit in the service bulletin. "Engineering has found..."
Many thanks Fran. Your crowbar circuit solution is fantastic, simple and effective. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. Much appreciated.
"People find a way to blow them up." What engineers discover no matter how much care and thought they put into designing consumer products.
Yes, I once had something come back that accidentally got connected to 440VAC.
Adams' Law: If you make something idiot-proof, the Universe will just make a better idiot.
One of the engineers I worked with at TRW years ago said this, and I paraphrase: "It's very hard to idiot-proof any product you design. Why? It's because idiots are so clever". She was a very smart lady and, alas, passed on several years ago. God be with you Karen.
@@bielanski2493 Could you provide me with a slightly more verbose yet understandable definition of Adam's Law? It would help an intrigued/uninformed layman like me haha
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
- Douglas Adams
So, someone now has a Frantone pedal with a RUclips video of the creator repairing it (Damage due to user negligence, of course). That makes it more valuable and talk about bragging rights!! :-)
Thank you for explaining the crowbar! I was agonizing over how to protect a little amp I want to make for a friend and I think that would be perfect.
Frantone Crowbar™!
@@FranLab Sorry - thank you for explaining the Frantone Crowbar™!
@@FranLab Hello Fran, one more question please.
What value or type of PTC do You use; In my experiance they are often just a little to slow and so the semiconducters blow nevertheless :-/
@@tvelektron Hi tvektron, the zener should protect the electronics even if the thermistor is slow. The zener is very fast! The value of the thermistor depends on your circuit current.
@@tvelektron I suppose nothing is 100% but they do seem to perform just fine for this application. There are lots of choices with thermistors so you can pick the one that meets your specific design considerations.
Right at the beginning, I was initially interpreting what you were saying as "a peddlin' for repair" as if you were a time traveler from the old west.
I remember wanting Frantone pedals in the ‘90’s - someday…
Fran you are one of my heroes 🙏 hope you’re happy healthy and prosperous this year
Yay! A frantone episode
Love that you are revisiting the Frantone line! Thank you for this
That PTC device is an excellent method of protection against overvoltage and incorrect polarity but it is not a crowbar, it's just a voltage clamp. A crowbar is a device that actively shorts out the power supply in order to blow a fuse or current limit the supply, as if you dropped a real crowbar across the bus bars. It normally involves a Thyristor or some other active power component and once triggered it doesn't let go until the source of power goes away.
I have that same desoldering gun and it came with cleaning tools for the various tips.
Nice to watch an artist at work on their work; Thank You!
Awesome design for the over V and polarity, handy little devices, you’ve put it to great use.
nice to see someone who really knows their stuff and cares about their stuff, work on their stuff!
Great to hear that exhaust fan, so you're not inhaling the solder fumes. I loved that smell as a teen, but I imagine it's hazardous - particularly in quantity.
Back to better than factory standard, 15 years later, despite Frantone not manufacturing new products anymore. That’s pretty impressive.
I always learn something fascinating on the pedal repairs. thanx
Thank you so much for teaching me about PTC.
i learned so much by watching this video! thanks Fran!
My de solder gun came with a very long drill bit and a pin vice to ream the stuck solder out, works very well and dose not take half an hour just a few minuets.
Would love to see a video on soldiering. Your joints always look so nice and professional. You make it look so easy.
I think most people have a "customized" tool for particular jobs. I've got two. Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing.
Loved seeing the insides of one of your pedals! My Hakko FR-300 clogs occasionally but they package a 1.0mm stiff wire tool that works well for pushing out solder plugs. The worst clog is when the leg of some component breaks off and lodges inside the nozzle. Then you break out the 1.0mm twist drill bit!
Another great channel ive stumbled upon. Thank you for your videos Fran!
amazing! love seeing behind the scenes
i feel like this company/ channel should be a lot bigger- i wish you all of that success this year !
spot on about the sockets and contacts in generala. I do tube stuff, and by far the biggest problems I've had are with switches and tube sockets. Fixed plenty of tuners by simply pulling tubes and cleaning the sockets and pins.
I've got one of these. Absolutely monstrous bottom end for bass, super creamy fuzz sound.
I love these videos. Super informative
Your pedals are awesome. The Sweet and Vibutron are so damn cool. I would love to see you do a combo a pedal that combines Phase/Chorus/Delay/Reverb.
Nice repair, thanks for sharing...Vic
Sockets for old-school DIP ics are often a pain in the patootey! In the 80s I used to service huge video effects crate for a TV Station that contained ten 2 ft square boards absolutely packed in with 1000s of asics & standard TTL. The HEAT(!) the thing generated (it used 2 x 5V 300A powersupplies) , even with massive fullspeed fans saw the ics often 'walk' out of their sockets making for parts of the system to suddenly stop doing its thang! Regular procedure = pull each board, place on large flat surface & push home every chip into its socket (which made a nice click). We had to do this every month for the life of the crate.
Was it an Ampex ADO or maybe a Abekas A-57? I used to edit with an Abekas A-34. If it started acting weird, I'd pull out the boards and do a chip-push.
@@larrysbk GVG Kaleidoscope... 4 effects chains in 3 Crates that were used looped through each other just to run the News opener... (Live)! & during the day accessible by all edit suites for whatever art a Producer could conjure up.... Yeah those were they days & now it al happens in cheap as PC.
Hi Fran. I had the same desoldering tool (now I changed to hakko). When it stuck at the beginning I used my soldering gun to heat it from inside. It always worked for me in seconds without having it 15 minutes parked on a transformer :-)
This one finally made me become a patron. This is content I like. Would like to score one of your old products though I'm a digital effects kind of guy.
thank you for the trick to clear the solder sucker!
I use a 1N5818 in parallel and a 1N4005 to gnd. So far no casualties. Your design is very clever! Very nice build.
wow, i'm impress learn a lot ,thank Fran
New sub. Neat video. Love the little history breakdown.
Cheers!
I wouldn’t worry too much about the crowbar being stollen, the pedal industry got lazy. Nobody makes anything new and unique, they just keep tweaking what’s already been done... nice to see a new video Fran! :D
Fran, I also have a ZD-985 and I clear a jam by running it up to max heat and use the cleaning rods. It does work a lot faster than a half hour.
The owner of the pedal must be stoked. Not only restored to better than original condition by Fran, but a nice video to watch it happen.
Thanks for another video Fran :)
Cool! I've never bathed a pedal in beer or plugged in the wrong power adapter but maybe I'm just a little bit more protective of my gear. I have had drunks step on and bend a cable end or two.
Sounds like a good fuzz tone . Cleans up to .
Very stylish of you to color-coordinate your shirt and smoke absorber!
I didn't know you were the Fran in Frantone! Thanks for sharing the bit about the crowbar! It's funny you mention maintaining input voltage for headroom, I'm working on a pedal where I've bootstrapped an opamp's power rails and I'm reliably getting like 11v of swing off of 9v with some transistors and 47uf caps.
That's a fantastic shop uniform.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I recall seeing a Frantone pedal. Having never heard of it before I passed it up as undesirable. Boy was I wrong, I should kick myself for that major screw up and I should have purchased it right then and there. I had no Idea of the very thoughtful process lovingly dedicated to your builds. I am impressed..
Nice trouble-shooting vid Fran... WELL DONE!!! 10/10
Was just about to act like a know it all and ask why you didn't use a socket, then you immediately explained. Enjoyed the vid, thanks.
Wow. You are so cool. I'm a fran fan!
Heat rises nice disordering gun. All I ever got to use was a bulb DE soldering gun used to remove 40 pin UARTS from the Commodore 64
Fran, you are so cool love what you do. Oh and quality design as a guitarist would like to try some of your pedals.
Nice modeling hands, smart lady . Cool she knows her stuff.
Love the overdriven guitar aka ‘ Wooden ships ‘ CSN
When I see a vid and you have a pedal in your hands count me in!!!!
Any time is Frantone time.
Nice pedal. Cheers from Brazil.
Great stuff. Loved seeing some pedal work. Thanks for sharing!
I almost expected you to say "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow"!
I LOVE YOU FRAN!!
What other Company can you think of that will repair their 15 year old products? Makes me want to go out and buy a Frantone pedal, but I think I might need a guitar first!
Look for a Firefly Guitar on Amazon (when they are available) best cheap guitar on the market. This is the one I bought (link below). This model can play many types of genres of music so it's a good starter. They can have ruff cosmetic blemishes but for $140 it can't be beat. There are some occasional duds some people get but just return it (Amazon makes it easy to return by taking it to a UPS store with no shipping cost.) There is an owners group on Facebook if you want to talk to some owners of the Firefly models to attest to what you can get for your money.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MJH9G7J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Cannot believe that we still don't have better desoldering tools. Lovely vid Fran, I love how you stick with your products. That's the real proof of their quality.
google metcal ;)
Very nice repair video. I use some sort of steel wire to clean my desoldering gun.. within a few minutes..soldering gun does harm the PCBs too much..
the value of this specific pedal has skyrocketed now
I like your desoldering gun technique cure...🙂
Oh, My, God, a lovely intelligent woman who MAKES GUITAR PEDALS! My next thought was literally "I wonder if she is married?" (and as childish as that sounds, I'm just being honest, i really did think that thought). Fran, you may be the coolest woman I have seen on YT in a looooong time. Every day, there's a blessing!
This girl learned her soldering lessons 😉👍
that’s some excellent customer service
Every manufacturer has a repair department......... period. Glad you got it solved.
Looked on Ebay. Those Frantone boxes hold their value!
i love my Brooklyn Overdrive
When everyone is trying to get rid of distortion..
Fuzz pedal: hold my beer (and don't spill it on me)
I know, and look at the op amp with no attempt to filter the power to it because who cares?
You have a tool to snap zip ties!! Love it
Thoroughly enjoyed watching this video. Educational and fun to watch. I’m now a Franfan!
Hate to say it but I had never heard of you before coming across this video. So I had to go check your fuzz pedals, then went to your art website. You drew Gus Grissom??!! He was my favorite astronaut when I was a kid and I was crushed when Apollo 1 burned up on the launchpad. I also noticed a Carl Sagan book behind you in a different video. I love his "Pale Blue Dot", it brings a lot of perspective and reminds me just how small we really are in the grand scheme of things. I'm no electronics whiz but I do play guitar so I guess I'll have to sub and go search for one of your creations.
Cheers from Vermont.
For polarity protection I use mosfet and resistor divider. Open mosfet has virtualy zero voltage drop.
I was half-expecting you to find a crack in the case and get the TIG welding kit out!
Good video.
Knowledgeable and super cute!
I put a little notch in the nozzle of the solder sucker so the iron tip can fit in - the nozzle fits tighter to the board and the suction is better.
Good Evening Fran, I suspect you are correct about the liquid, but I have also seen stains and strange solder results when someone has used acid core instead of rosin core solder in a repair.
I really enjoy your videos Fran. Well done, such a fun channel. Never know what you’ll see! I would love to find one of these vintage frantone pedals someday.
Thanks!!!!!
I would love more videos about pedal guts
Something sorely lacking in today's world, a crafts-person who stands by their work, even when it was obviously not do to a failure in the build. Take care and God Bless from Florida.
Yes, Apple could take a lesson here.
A history of frantone pedals would be very interesting
I did a few long lecture videos - check the playlists cover all that.
I never used a "Classic Fuzz" but have always wanted to try it after using a "Flashback Fuzz". I like to use a fuzz after my heavy metal as a way to make it a bit heavier for certain parts of a song.
Fran, you are awesome! I learn something new every time I watch one of your videos. I would love to create something with you one day!
Id love to see your method for both PCB manufacture and the enamel or what coating it is that's you've applied to that PCB. It looks as though astronauts could wager their lives on that PCB. I've had the same trouble with my desoldering gun, THANKS for the tube heating tip! If I get clogged solder in my chamber I use a little pin vise and a drill bit just big enough to clear the solder out by twisting it after removing the tip from the gun. I've thought of trying to buy an extra couple tips and cutting one just a little shorter as an experiment just to test whether shortening that tube would possibly help to avoid that scenario. The replacements are expensive. If price was no object I'd just drill it out even more there at the rear end of the tube and see how that might help! NICE PEDALS ILL KEEP MY EYE OUT FOR A FRANTONE! THANKS FOR SHARING, GREAT TIPS!!
Fran, I just came across you channel and it all seems rather interesting. This video is really interesting, very clearly explained, also the video is really clear. Looking forward to watching more. Best, LSR
I just started to built my own pedals, Its always awesome see other trans peeps doing things other than in the community stuffs. I am a tinker type of person. Ie fixing basic electronics and car overhauls, making lightsabers, brewing beer, cosplay and ceramics. Yep, I like playing in the mud.
I wish I could afford your pedals. I have my eye on that vibutron but I also like the hi ball and cream puff. That square wave makes me happy. I picked up the guitar again, working on my megar skills. So to keep me interested, I am building pedals to add some different sounds to the mix. Also I am in cat scan school. So I better be focusing on that, so I can afford one of vibz. also I feel you with the tremors.
I have different way to unclog desoldering gun. I stick thick bare copper wire into nozzle and turn heating on. Wire will transfer heat from the tip to the blob usually located at the other end of pipe.