the Fly Clone Project

This thread related to the Internal Electronics Flexible Circuitboard of pre-refined Fly guitars.
While the circuit-board can replaced with point-to-point wiring (see the Electronics and Wiring Guides section), this area of exploration will seek ways to salvage the Fishman powerchip from existing Fly flexible circuitboards and transplant them into comparable structures.

The original Flex used a parasite plug" to facilitate the smart-switching aspects of the output jack; when newer jacks were available on the market, those designs were integrated into the Fly and the flex was adapted to accommodate as shown here:

Various notes:

- The flex circuits terminate in fingers with 50-mil spacing. That's 1.27 mm. This should fit some standard 9-pin and 16-pin connectors - to be sourced.

- Fingers are tinned for a length of 150 mils.

- The stiffener is about 600 mils long on the 16-pin end, and about 500 mils on the 9-pin end.

- The upper right corner of the 12-pole switch has a notch cut out, as shown in the drawing, on my Deluxe, but the Supreme is rectangular - no cutout

- Tape B on my Deluxe has a rip-stop circle at the end of the split between the Stereo/Mono switch and Output arms to keep this cut from tearing further.

- I've measured most of the widths and lengths, but it would be tedious to list them here.

- I examined the Deluxe most closely, since I had some problems with the replaced output jack. The Deluxe Tape B looks a little different from the drawing above, so I'll try to remember to look at the Supreme to see which variation it has.

- My Deluxe has Tape A marked 11/8/97 and Tape B marked 6/20/97 for a March 1997 guitar.

- I plan to contact a flex circuit maker to confirm that they can take standard gerber files, and go from there.

Fantastic, @rsdio! Thanks for this info!

Terrific work. Historically, the only Gen 1 part less-salvageable than the ribbon assembly was the piano string truss rod.

Hello! I have a 1998 Parker Fly deluxe with the flex circuits broken because one of the knobs was loose and turned too much

Did you find where to buy the flex circuits?

Thanks for your post!, very useful...

Hi @psuescun,

The flex is no longer being made. You can try to find them on eBay or Reverb as, occasionally, they do show up.

FWIW--we are actively working, now, on a solution to reproduce these Flex assemblies with improvements to rigidity and design. More soon!

Cool! Count me in to help. I have experience designing and manufacturing electronics.

Okay great! Thanks! Please PM your email and I’ll loop you in!