foot switches

[idlefaction]

kia ora all,

i've been using the taiwanese x-wing switches for a while and they've all started crapping out - a friend of mine who makes a commercial pedal has also told me he's looking for a new pedal source as the carlings he's been getting are failing about 1 in 5 or something.

can anyone recommend me and him anything? those alpha switches at small bear look good.  i don't need 3pdt as i use millenium 2 switching, but if there's nothing else i'll probably replace the 20-something pedals i have out in the wild with them anyway...

[Torchy]

Shameless advertising alert ...

I bought half a dozen 3pdts from Aron - no problems with any of them and I like the quality, positive action, price is good too (thanks again Aron   ).

I built an OD for a friend with two 3pdts in. Gets hammered three to five nights a week and hes had no problems in the couple of months hes had it.

[audioguy]

Arons are good... Ive had about 10 or so.. maybe less... had one fail- but Im not sure if it was a bad switch or if I overheated it while wiring it up. But at the price Aron is selling them for I can afford to toss one every now and then.

Audioguy

[Hal]

I think someone (maybe even steve?) said the alpha ones crap out pretty easily.

Man I hope my carlings dont start failing :-D

[tele_guitarist]

Shameless advertising alert ...

I bought half a dozen 3pdts from Aron - no problems with any of them and I like the quality, positive action, price is good too (thanks again Aron   ).

I built an OD for a friend with two 3pdts in. Gets hammered three to five nights a week and hes had no problems in the couple of months hes had it.

absolutely--I started using arons 3pdt's in everything--even if a dpdt would work! Excellent price, ships super quick. Highly recommended! (sounds like an ebay feedback doesn't it?  :lol: )

[idlefaction]

heh, cheers all, i'll go with that then i think!

my band went into the studio on the weekend and only one of my pedals got used the whole weekend cos the rest all had bung switches...  

--

[RDV]

I bought a bunch of 2N5485 for Millenium 1+ which works really really well if you get the resistor values right. I built a Rodent the other day & was extremely pleased with the Me 1+. No lag at all turning on or off. I'm going to order 10 of those Alpha switches & give them a try meself!



RDV

[aron]

I used to build only the Millenium 1 and it worked well. It's a great idea, but for me I always had to find a place on the box to mount the separate piece of perboard in addition to the routing the wires.

The main reason I like the 3PDTs is that it's really simple to wire an LED and after I factor in the time to solder and mount the perfboard, the 3PDT saves me time. In fact I went back and retofitted my old pedals to the 3PDTs. It wasn't that long ago that I was paying over $8 for Carlings!

[STOMPmole]

This might be off topic, but do those of you that skip the Millenium bypass and go with a 3PDT switch/LED have problems with audible popping caused by the LED and does the MB do a better job of preventing audible pops?

I haven't completed my pedals yet...so I don't have any experience with either construction method.  Given a choice, it seems like the 3pdt would be the cheaper, cleaner, and easier choice for true bypass with LED assuming audible clicks aren't a problem.  Any advice is appreciated!

[Hal]

never used 3pdt's, but popping can be avoided by adding high value pulldown resistors...

[idlefaction]

i suspect either method has the same sudden increase in current consumption so it wouldn't matter too much.  

the whole pulldown resistor thingy works for referencing things to ground so you don't get a DC offset suddenly changing when you add a load that references to ground.  i think what you want here is a bypass cap across the power supply - 10uF to 100uF is usually fine.  you can go even furthur and add a seperate 10 ohm - 10uF string for the bypass LED circuit and the audio circuit:

Code Select Expand

    10R     ,--> LED
---/\/\/\/---*---\/\/\/\--*--> audio
            |    10R     |
      10uF ===          === 10uF
            |            |
            0V           0V


hth...  heh.  i think i may as well get 20 of those switches.  cheers aron!

[travissk]

Another vote for Aron's 3PDTs

[R.G.]

There is a weak link in the power/ground setup in most effects using stereo jack switching. You can get pops when switching the relatively high LED current even if you have pulldown resistors on both input and output caps.

The culprit is ground noise. The ground noise happens when the sudden start and/or stop of current in the LED makes the signal ground voltage change suddenly.  +9V decoupling may not help, and may make it worse.

The ground noise comes from our friend, the stereo jack ground switch.  If your jack is new and the plug is new, things work great. When dirt, oil, crud, bar funk, and other nasties build up on the ground ring of the input jack and the second-channel contact that supplies ground through the plug into the input ground ring, and thence to the  effect board, the resistance can get high enough to make a noticeable pop when the LED current starts and stops.

This sudden transient is worse with mechanical switches because they really do go from fully off to milliohms of resistance in zero time when the metals contact. The sudden "ground bounce" can flow right into the input of your effect, and it doesn't take much to hear a pop from the input of a gain-of-a-zillion MegaBlaster.

What to do, what to do??

(1) Clean your plugs and jacks. Yep, and do it again. And again, every so often.
(2) Use the OUTPUT jack for power switching - it's less sensitive by the gain of the pedal.
(3) Use the GEO scheme for cold-switching +9V by using a PNP transistor with it's base tied through a resistor to the stereo lug on the input or output jack, and the battery minus tied directly to the board. The PNP transistor only lets +9 through when its base is pulled down by the plug in the jack, but this current does not change noticeably when the LED is started, and so any ground bounce is only through the hard-soldered milliohms of the battery lead, and is much, much smaller.

See the power supply switch in the Neutron filter at GEO or at GGG, or see the positive 9V switch in http://geofex.com/FX_images/oaspltr.gif for how to hook up the PNP.

[aron]

(2) Use the OUTPUT jack for power switching - it's less sensitive by the gain of the pedal.

I've thought about this, but I guess we are so used to unplugging the input that I wonder if we could get used to this?

THANKS R.G!!!!!

[Michael Allen]

You know you could.....

use a pancake switch from GEO. I've made a few now using them to control a Wicked Switch from The Tone God. Works awesome too! You know the best part? The IC's were free from TI, and the mousepad was free too. So total cost equals like $.30!

Mine were modified pancakes though. I used two pieces of metal and separated them with the Neoprene rubber. There is a hole drilled through all three right in the middle. The top piece of metal has a wire soldered to it that runs through the hole and down through the other 2 pieces. The cone created by the solder serves to connect the two metal contacts when the Neoprene is depressed. You can't get much cheaper and it works great! No Pops!