The Electra Forums

Hey All,
This is my first post. I just got my first Electra; an x-810. The guitar is beautiful and sounds amazing. It came with two modules, the phaser and the flanger. The phaser module sounds better than a lot of stomp boxes that I have tried. The flanger: not so good.

When you kick it on the volume of the guitar drops to about half. I am pretty handy with a soldering iron so i figured that i would just open the module and replace all the capacitors and resistors with new ones to see if that helped. As you can probably already guess, I took out the module and noticed that they are not designed to be serviced.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to open a module without breaking it. Or, does someone want to trade the flanger for a different module? I already have one modulation module and I would rather have something else in the second slot (fuzz, overdrive, tank, treble/bass).

Let me know if anyone has any advice

The hard plastic type of modules can be cracked open. Our Admin Thorny (John) does a modification to the overdrive module that sounds much better. I would suggest a PM to him for advice. The modules (early type) that are encased in solid plastic cannot be serviced.

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"This is the way that pop ends, Not with a BANG but with a box set whose fourth disc you never get around to playing” - Simon Reynolds

"My guitar wants to kill your Mama" - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention

First things first, the Flanger will drop volume a little, even if working correctly. Just the way it is. But it won't be that dramatic. You may have a problem.

Try to clean it, use a fresh pencil eraser on the contacts and they will shine up. It may help some.

You have to remove the two adjustment knobs on the module itself in order to take it apart. The modules adjustment knobs need to be lifted out, then you can pop the module apart at the seam (might be easy, might be a pain in the a$$). You may use an xacto knife to break the seam if it is well-glued. Just be careful not to cut yourself, an xacto razor does an excellent job on fingers and hands, as does a box cutter with a new razor blade (oh yeah, I have done that - the emergency room will bear witness).

The secret sauce of repairing most of the problems with the problems with a flanger module are replacing the tantalum "tear drop" capacitors. You can find them on mouser (I believe you still can, been a while since I have ordered some). You need to determine the values you have on it now, and the "+" and "-" pins. Get the same values (or as close as you can find) and at a similar voltage value and replace them - I forget, probably only 2 or 3. Do that and it will usually repair a flanger module.

The flanger is a particularly good sounding module, just a little bit of volume loss and noise (hey, old analog effects can be that way, so can digital, but analog really usually sounds a lot better to my ears).

Good luck! Hope this helps.

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Thorny

Wow! Thanks guys. This is very helpful. I will try to use an xacto. I have been using an iPhone tool that is used to pry off parts.

I will also contact john about the power overdrive.

Thanks again.

Luke

Hey, Sunhayato UK-10P-67 is board that you can use to make a generic module if you can find one. They are Japanese. An engineer friend of mine came back with a few of these after a visit to Japan a few years ago. You can make your own device by soldering components to the board and jumpering between them, then wrapping it up to keep it from shorting in your MPC compartment. It has the right type or edge connector.

I can't tell you where to find them or how much, but they do fit. I have not built anything on them yet, but maybe I will. I think a good fuzz or distortion would be nice. I think anything else (unless some kind of effect on a chip and adapted to it) might be a bit too ambitious. But I am not an effect designer.

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Thorny