Boss BD-2 Mod help..

I'm doing the Monte Allums BD-2 mod and I got to part "g" which says to remove R39 (jumper). Everything was working great up till then. I removed that part and I have no signal and the LED stopped working. I put a piece of a wire in the diodes place (that came out of the R39 spot) and still nothing. I removed the wire.. nothing. I put the diode back in it's place and still no signal. I then flipped the diode thinking I had the direction wrong and still no signal. I'm out of ideas and I'm starting to think I burnt the circuit board or did something irreversable. My soldering isn't too shabby but from removing R39 so man times theres a little bit of black residue around the solder points on the underside of the circuit board. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My LED was super bright before i took r-39 out so I have no idea where I went wrong. And I was testing the pedal with each step so I'm positive the failure came from "removing the jumper".

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs183.snc1/6091_109195482690_640257690_2685968_5660978_n.jpg

http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs183.snc1/6091_109195492690_640257690_2685969_6532508_n.jpg

Thanks.

Ok after fiddling around with it I got the signal working again. I finished the mod, and the pedal sounds great, HOWEVER I still do not have a functioning LED. I removed the R39 diode and did not put anything in it's place. The LED was working prior to the initial removal of the R39 jumper. I guess I can do without an LED for the time being as I can tell when it's on or off by the sound (obviously) but it would be nice to get it working again. I modded my boss CS-3 Compressor with no problems so I'm not sure what happened here.

R39 is not a diode. It's a limiting resistor for the status LED, and it's tied into the flip-flop (effect switching) circuit. With nothing in there, you won't get the flip flop, as you've experienced.

From the directions, it sounds like the Monte mod directs you to replace the resistor with a piece of jumper wire, to make the super bright LED, uh, super bright!

...But there's a couple of problems with jumpering that resistor. First is if you put something akin to the stock LED back in, you could burn it out. Second, the current draw goes sky high - if you use batteries, the bright LED could draw more current than the pedal circuit itself, in many instances!

The replacement LED is probably not lighting up because it's in backwards, or it might have been damaged in the process. My guess is that it's the first - the LED lead that goes to the little triangular "flag" inside is your CATHODE, and needs to be connected to the GREEN wire. I usually take out the LED assembly and temporarily mount it onto one corner of the enclosure, so that I can test it prior to reinstalling it.

...And I would NEVER (personally) replace R39 with a jumper. The lowest I go is 470 ohms (stock is 1.2K), and that's for a pedal that will never see battery usage. I almost always start with the stock value and only change it if the LED is on the dim side.

Remember - if you go back to the stock LED, the 1.2K resistor is the way to go. With a jumper in there, you will probably burn it out.

Thanks for the help, that makes sense. I checked and I have the LED in the right way but I'm thinking I blew it out when I tested it after I did the jumper because I was testing the pedal with a battery as opposed to an adapater. I'm going to put the stock LED in. Can I buy a 1.2k limiter at radio shack?

Ok I went to Radio Shack and picked up some 1K and 470 ohm resistors. I also picked up some 3v red LED's. I'm going to try the 1K resistors first. My question is.. Are the resistors directional like the diodes are? All of the diodes have an arrow printed on the board to show the orientation of the diode, however the resistor (R-39) doesn't have an arrow so I'm assuming since it's just a limiter, it does not matter. Is this correct? Again thanks for all the help, I've learned quite a bit from this experience so far.

Resistors have no polarity - install them either way.

The 1K resistor should work fine. RS isn't going to carry anything like a 1.2K.

Components with NO polarity:

- resistors
- film caps
- ceramic caps
- silver mica caps
- special nonpolarized electrolytic caps, i.e. bipolar caps

Components WITH polarity:

- diodes, including Light.Emitting.Diodes.
- electrolytic caps
- tantalum caps
- and obviously transistors, IC amps, and all semiconductors

It may help to take a little time and familiarize yourself with the different types of components, especially since the BD-2 uses almost everything listed above.

Thanks so much for the help. Turns out I had the Cathode side right but I must have blew the LED out when I initially tried the pedal without the limiting resister (as I was testing it with a 9V). I replaced the resister with a 1K and put the red LED back into the pedal and it works just fine. I think it's a hair brighter than my other boss pedals but it may just be my eyes. I don't care about the LED, it's the tone I'm going for. From now on I think I'm going to leave the LED's alone. Thanks again!