tale of woe and warning

**cyrus** · 2-Jul-2011, 15:41

Bought a footswitch for a chromegatrol off of eBay.
Plugged it in.
Pressed "expose"
Chromegatrol exploded.
Angels cried.

**Graybeard** · 2-Jul-2011, 17:53

It sounds as if you blew one of the electrolytic capacitors inside the Chromegatrol. This should be fixible if a replacement capacitor is available in the size that you need.

Originally Posted by cyrus

Bought a footswitch for a chromegatrol off of eBay.
Plugged it in.
Pressed "expose"
Chromegatrol exploded.
Angels cried.

**Brian C. Miller** · 3-Jul-2011, 00:07

Ummm ... pictures? (You did plug it into the footswitch jack and not something that said, "output", right?)

I bought a footswitch for my Gralab 900 off eBay, and it works fine. Anyways, this is probably something that would have happened regardless if the footswitch was from Satter-Omega. As Graybeard suggests, it sounds like a cap blew, and the rest of it is probably fine. If the case is intact, open it up and take a look. If you are handy with basic soldering, you probably can fix it yourself.

**Greg Blank** · 3-Jul-2011, 06:02

How old is the Chromegatrol - I assume its the dial style version and not the digital with membrane keypad. Had it been used by you previously? Capacitors have a nasty way of doing that if unused for years. There is not a lot of stuff on the older type Chromegatrols circuit Board however, there are some IC's and an insruction chip IIRC so if you manage to obtain the cap be careful handling the board. Hopefully the power surge did not damage the Instruction memory chip, they are NLA- new.

**John Jarosz** · 3-Jul-2011, 06:33

When an electrolytic capacitor fails it's usually very loud. Happens with old capacitors that have been sitting for a while unused. Collect the pieces and hopefully you can find the part with the voltage and microfarad capacity requirements. If there was no collateral damage you can probably replace the capacitor (You will need to get the polarity correct on installation) and the unit will probably function. If there is collateral damage then more detective work will be needed. A schematic would be most advantageous.

John