Plumbutter 2 - repairing faulty jacks

Hi, this is a quick reference to a post made back in 2016 by my mate Paul (Cobramatic/Allinaire).
https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=169993 

I first experienced Paul's Plumbutter back in 2016. Here is the link:
https://djjondent.blogspot.com/2016/06/new-sound-waves-synth-meet-sunday-26.html
It was a New Sound Waves meeting in Redfern Sydney 

Here is a video from that meeting:

The mixer is a zone DB4.
Excellent effects !!!!
As you can see, this is one of the rare dual Plumbutter 2's
I love the Ciat Lonbarde concept... beautiful is somewhat mysterious. But this is part of its beauty.

Back to the repair.
two jacks ... actually many of the jacks wern't working.
Much of the initial prob was that the mysterious nature makes it difficult to know if the prob is technicial or a user error.

this is part of the muffs article:

"Hi All, I’m relatively new to the Plumbutter world but I wanted to share my initial experience with others because the simple repair work I did this weekend has just brought a whole new life to my PB2.

Basically, like everybody else, it takes some time to figure out what is happening when you are patching. I mean the instrument is well known for its unpredictability compared to so called ’traditional’ synths – this is clearly part of its charm and appeal. I totally get that. That’s why you get one!

Tricky thing is – when an instrument is known for its quirkiness then how do you know something is actually working as it is intended to?? I mean, other than reading all the posts and watching some of those amazing videos by many of the Wigglers here, I had no clue to start with. Then as I started to understand I wondered why some things didn’t do what I might have hoped they would...

For example – you would expect those purple FM inputs to give you some type of FM modulation when a jack is plugged in – but because the knob already changes the sound on its own, and differently depending on the direction of turn, I couldn’t be sure I was getting a result. Basically I wasn’t getting a result!"

Rollz – I knew I should be able to mix things up with the browns to effect the rhythms if I connected them together – but for me several of them did nothing when connected. Blue Verso and Inverso jacks – ditto there, some of them seemed to do nothing no matter how hard I tried with them

For a while I thought it was me, then I noticed that some jacks responded if I wiggled them juuuust right, or pushed the nana in part way only. So finally I decided to take things apart and have a look. 

 It is very easy on the PB2 to unscrew all the front screws and then just pop out the front section and PCB from the base to reveal the board in all its glory. If you look at the picture here you can see that the soldering looks fine on the Jack I'm pointing to - Nope, actually there is no electrical connection. The reality is I had at least 8 (yes EIGHT !!) jacks that were not connecting properly thru to the PCB ring around each hole. Presumably a cold or cracked joint? 

 I pulled out the multimeter and soldering iron and tested every one and resoldered the faulty jacks – it was easy as pie to do. Put it all back together and it works like a dream come true – suddenly things work like I wanted them too. 

Motto of the story – if you are having any of the problems I described, or if any of your in's or out's don't seem to respond - then don’t be afraid to pop it open and fix it yourself. I can’t believe how much more fun I’m having now.

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I dont personally own a ciat lonbarde but am considering getting one soon.
The Tetrax looks like a good entry point;

View this post on Instagram

#tetrax #ciatlonbarde #cobramatic

A post shared by jono (@dj_jondent) on Sep 22, 2017 at 9:06pm PDT

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Links
Ciat-Lonbarde
Plumbutter Manual
Plumbutter - C-L
Muffs
mUFFS 2
Ciat Lonbarde - Paper Circuits
Plumbutter test procedure - from the great man himself (Peter B)