the Fly Clone Project

Hello, I'm an electrical engineer new to electric guitars and am trying to help a friend with a broken Fly Classic main board. On preliminary inspection, it looks like the LTC1044 Capacitive power inverter is not working to provide Vee (-9VDC.) Before I really dig into it, I have a few questions: 1) Is there a source for the full replacement board? 2) I was sent the board, so will not be able to determine full fit or functionality, so my preferred plan is to de-solder the 1044 and replace it with a socket, so that if the IC burns out again, it will be easier to replace. Not sure if the increased height of the IC socket (i.e. 2-3 mm added height) will have any physical interference problems. Any recommendations?

Hi @yanstep99—sorry to hear about this issue. We have a replacement Flex PCB at the moment, and @Peaches (aka Ryan) is working on a replacement for the original Fishman board, but it will be a while, unfortunately. Apart from that, perhaps you can ask in the Classifieds section?

Perhaps someone else may be able to help with this?

1) Like VJ said, no replacement boards yet unfortunately.

2) There is enough clearance from the standoffs that adding a socket should be perfectly okay (LTC 1044 faces downwards).

In case you haven't found it, the schematic can be found on the forum here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48

Peaches, could you confirm that all the transistors are either NPN or PNP BJTs? I have a Fly1, Rev 1 Fishman board and the SMD markings are slightly different than those listed in the schematic. Has anyone tracked down compatible SMD transistor replacement part numbers? From SMD markings, there are two each 6Dp, 5DL, and 1RL; and one 2Qu transistor.

I desoldered the LTC1044, which was a little tricky because one of the pins is very close to a corner of the ribbon connector, and installed a socket. I ordered several LTC1044s from Ebay, so have extras in case the IC fails again. The fix worked, and the guitar is functioning, so that is good news.