My TS10, which has been a flawless pedal for over 20 years, still works as expected but now hums very annoyingly loud when it's on. Soloing seems to override this hum, but chording and passages with any space between notes are all but impossble. It may be a short, cuz it occasionally just hums loudly and blocks all other sound. A well placed nudge usually sets it right again. I dunno how to solder pedals, but I have sprayed contact cleaner in all the available areas. Do these pedals have a history of this specific failure? Mine has become a sentimental possession, and I wanna keep it around.

You've already changed out the cables to make sure it's not one of them, right?

Is it possible that an internal wire is touching the case?

I assume you have it in a pedal case, not sure.
If not, I would open it up and check the parts moved the most....the ins and outs and either replace them or re solder them.
I would replace them anyway.
After that....I'd say it's going to be an electronic component, as ignorant as that sounds.

Best of luck and keep us in formed.

Randy

My first question would be, are you using a power supply or a battery? I've gotten weird hums from faulty PS's, and sometimes the connectors for the 9-volt adapter will crap out. Ibanez switches had a bad rep, but they didn't tend to hum.

Second question would be, have you added anything new to your signal chain? Some pedals don't play well with others, especially if you try to daisy-chain them off the same power supply. Having spent a little time trying to search on "TS10 hum issues", most of the problems seemed to come when the TS10 was chained with other pedals.

I figure you've tried all the basic A/B tests, switching guitars, amps, even which wall plug you're coming off of. That's all I've got, for now, but I'll check around some more.

Trouble shooting is always fun. Lots of good suggestions. Most of them you have probably already tried. Let us know if you find the culprit.

First thing I would do is take everything out of line, wiggle, put the pedal and patch chord in line, wiggle, try it with power supply vs battery, wiggle, now try a different pedal and see if problem goes away...OK it's narrowed down to the pedal...now open her up and have a look-see. Check the ins/outs as Randy suggested as they can get loose and/or worn. Check the switches and knobs as it maybe happening on one setting. Look for any loose wire or sloppy solder or loose contact on the pc board...now it's time to check diodes, etc and call for pinkjimiphoton!

Hmmmmnnn... without looking it over, I can't say anything much of any help... After making sure that any and all cables are fine and trying it in two different amps and with two different guitars, I'd check the input and output jacks for bad solder connections, etc....

Looks like we've all come up with the same series of A/B tests, so I only have one more suggestion, before exploratory surgery. Gently pull the knob covers off the knob shafts, and make sure they're tightened down. After years of knob-twisting, they can come loose, and if they're turning inside the chassis, that could be causing a contact/ground issue. Could also explain why the problem seems to be intermittent, if they're loose enough to move slightly when you turn the knobs, or nudge the box, or when the floor vibrates as you solo.

Hm, my inner geek has a question - have you got new lighting in the room, or anything with a motor/compressor/heating element? Random thought, he's done.

Okay, I'm done, too. Paging Dr. Photon!

Great ideas from all! Thx!

The cables and warts are all good. The order was guitar-tuner-comp-TS10-amp. It was a jam, si I didn't bother with the line6 blue modulation unit, but the same issue was prevalent at gigs, with the line6 being next to the amp, after the aforementioned order. If I use the DOD distortion, it is between the comp and the TS. This is because the inputs on the TS are on the end, and the tuner, comp, and dist are more conveniently on the sides. I've been using my Lifco Cobra 6V6 head with the Leyland 2x10 cab. There really isn't a clean sound to be found, unless the guitar's volume is turned down, and I don't really need the distortion with this amp, even with the Strat and Tele. It's a stripped down sound, compared to the Zooms I used to have in the signal, but it's really vintage-y and warm. My main amp is too loud for gigs with my other guitarist, who is using a sickly modded Gibson Skylark amp, which sounds great, but really gets buried by my main amp. This 6V6 amp is much more evenly matched with the Skylark, and their respective sweet spots aren't excessive decibels apart.

I'm gonna check the shafts and for visible exposed wire.

Holy Crap! There are no nuts on the knob shafts to tighten. Just these plastic rings that seem to act as seals. It looks so cheezy I'm amazed it has held up so long!

So the shafts could have been over-rotated and caused some of the wiring to be loose.

I suppose......not impressive build quality, but it has held up...

Ibanez switches were always their weak point, IMHO. Otherwise, the pedals are pretty damned tough, up there with Boss pedals, IME.

The biggest PITA with plastic knobs, shafts and jacks is replacing them. Hope it doesn't come to that.

It won't - it'll live out its or my days on a shelf first.

reif,
if you wanna send it to me, i'll gladly repair it for you free of charge if you pay the shipping.

what you're describing is the sound of a bad solder joint to a filter or blocking cap inside the pedal.

electrolytic caps are sh*tty devices... we use 'em cuz ya can fit a lot of capacitance in a small place.

odds are, a solder joint went bad. it happens.

pm me if ya want me to take a swing at it for ya bro...may be better to hit me on facebook, cuz i hardly ever have the time free to chill here lately.

i just had to fix my cyberdeluxe, my bass player walked into it.. gave it a good whack (the dumb f*ck!!) and from that moment, it kept rebooting randomly, which made it very difficult to get thru that rehearsal!!

even tho it was under warranty, i opened it up.. and discovered the first 2200u cap was the culprit.
these things, like everything for probably the last 30 years or so, is wave soldered... basically, they put all the stuff together, add some solder and bake it til it flows.

great for crappy ipods and lame dell computers, not so good for guitar amps.

investigation showed that they had trimmed the positive lead too short before installing it... i'm surprised it even worked, as the lead didn't even make it all the way thru the dang pcb!

a new cap, a little solder, and 5 minutes later, it was better than new.

while i don't reccomend dicking around inside guitar amps, effect pedals aren't as dangerous..
often you can find an issue just by observation.
try tapping on components with the eraser end of a pencil.
if the thing suddenly stops/starts working, that's usually the culprit.

Thx Jimi! PM me with with mailing info.....

great chatting earlier reif,
look forward to making your pedals ROCK again for ya!

Thx bud!