JHS Tidewater Repair & Mod

This is a great sounding little tremelo based off of the vintage EA Tremelo which JHS has tweaked to make even better. Volume knob, a zero speed option, dip switches for faster or slower speed knob funtion, and pulsing speed LED are great additions!

The pedal came in with no 'on' LED, and the intermittent depth not working (or at least acting weird!).

These boards are SMD, and virtually impossible to repair, so after testing the stock 5mm LED, I decided to run my own power and 1k resistor, and use the stock switch for grounding.

I took a look at the ribbon cable and potentiometer board, and simply checking and fixing the old connections brought the pedal back to working order. While I was at it, I changed the 3mm bright white LED to a diffused blue. It was still too bright, so I used a Sharpie to dim it.

After fixing the potentiometer board, I had just enough room for a mini toggle switch that grounds out the depth, and leaves you with a nice preamp you can use always on, or as a full-on booster. Toggle switch down, it's tremelo, using the blue knobs with volume. Toggle up, it's just the red volume for preamp or boost. Lastly, I decided to match the volume knob with the red LED.

All in all, a very fun project!