Planet Waves patch leads - shite?

paulnb57

I received a significant investment (about 80 quid!) in Planet Waves solderless FX patch leads today and in the main the process is very good and I managed to redo my pedalboard in 3/4 of an hour - thats 14 jacks, they all worked first time with no soldering, burnt fingers, swearing etc, however several don't stay in the pedal socket, I push 'em in and after a few minutes they pop out, they are still connected,but don't seem to latch, if the cable is U shaped between 2 pedals all is well but some of mine are not U shaped and cannot be, I've opened some pedals and bent the jack socket tab a little to get a more positive latch (they were OK with "normal" jacks). Trouble is I have a couple of mini pedals by TC Electronic, I don't have the correct size tork driver to undo the back, but I suspect the sockets are the plastic, no adjust type, so now I have to come up with something to maintain a positive pressure on the jacks to keep 'em in….Bugger!

Attached are a few photos..

1st In a Kit built Buffer note how the jack doesn't latch...

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii21/paulnb57/P9090002_zps340ecf17.jpg

2nd with bent jack tab to make a proper latch…..

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii21/paulnb57/P9090003_zps1e945d57.jpg

3rd with digital calliper length from face to edge of insulator on Planet Wave Jack 

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii21/paulnb57/P9090004_zps192e91a2.jpg

4th length for face to edge of insulator on"standard" jack…0.5mm difference…..

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii21/paulnb57/P9090007_zps277f263c.jpg

Anyone else had issues…….

meltedbuzzbox

always have issues with planet waves cables not staying in jack sockets

I always avoid them for this reason. I think they are made thicker or longer than usual for better contact which funnily enough is always worse. 

ThePrettyDamned

Yeah, I've heard reports of them damaging pedal jack sockets.

ICBM

Planet Waves cables: unreliable, jack-damaging, tone-sucking shite.

In my opinion.

paulnb57

Bugger, wish Id known earlier……..

fretmeister

ICBM said:

Planet Waves cables: unreliable, jack-damaging, tone-sucking shite.

In my opinion.

And their pre-made ones fail often.

All shite.

Planet Waves cables in general have failed on me at about 10 times the rate of any other make. I'll never buy them again.

paulnb57

Ive emailed the parent company, not expecting much, bloody frustrating waste of money I could have spent on cake! especially considering what they charge, and I have now got to solder up new leads, Grrrrrrrr! I shall await a reply then probably vent my spleen on their Facebook page!

longi

A lot of peolple seem have had problems with them, I must have been one of the lucky ones I've ony ever have one fail on me. Never had a problem with them myself.

TheCount

Bought 6 pre-made ones the other week. If you touched them while they were plugged in, it sounded like a hurricane. jacks fitted fine but binned them anyway. I have some PW american stage and they are good though.

failed_astronaut

I've been using Planet Waves for the past couple of years and I haven't had a problem with them either. I knew they weren't top end cables but thought they were a good step up from the lowest level patchers you get from Maplin.

Fuzzdog

Yep, I completely redid my pedalboard with Planet Waves cables a few years ago as they were on sale.  Bloody things would just pop themselves out of certain pedals with alarming regularity, ended up binning the lot.

Bought a 15ft cable as well which lasted all of three days.  You might say that my opinion of PW stuff is generally not too great.

SidNewton

ICBM said:

Planet Waves cables: unreliable, jack-damaging, tone-sucking shite.

In my opinion.

Spot on. Their guitar leads are utter shite with a high failure rate.

Dare I say the OP should have used KaBL. Always first class service.

Beexter

Didn't the Planet Waves come with a lifetime warranty? I have a couple of the guitar leads and haven't had an issues - guess I've been lucky.

Branshen

Anyone with broken planet waves cables can just ship them off to planet waves and get a replacement. I did it with a circuit breaker and only had to pay shipping one way.

Fuzzdog

Branshen said:

Anyone with broken planet waves cables can just ship them off to planet waves and get a replacement. I did it with a circuit breaker and only had to pay shipping one way.

I'd rather not have to use a warranty, and not have to pay anything.  The failure rate on all the PW stuff I've had over the years has been massively higher than any other brand, including a lot of much cheaper stuff.  Friends have had pretty much the same experience.

My main cable is still the braided Spectraflex which I bought 20 years ago - lifetime warranty, but never had to use it, and that cable has been utterly abused over the course of thousands of gigs.  At one point I even used it to tie the hatch of one of my old cars down when the latch broke on the way home from a gig.

paulnb57

I received a reply to my snotty email to the Planet Waves parent company D'Addario, heres the reply...

Mr. B************ ,

Sorry to hear that something that was to help bring you some joy has you utterly agitated.

We have sold countless thousands of these and for the vast majority they have been quite unproblematic.

So putdowns and threats aside I will remain civil to you and tell you that I am sorry for what you encountered. 

As I mentioned if you go online or look up reviews you'll see that what you ran into is not the norm.

If you want to send me the plugs I can replace them.

Please do not take the "what and incur additional cost to send them 

over " route as I will offset the postage and then some so that this negative-will turn-into-a-positive and in the end you'll most likely be thankful this occurred to begin with I want to help so I hope you will allow me to.

So today I will mail them to the other side of the pond and see what they return.........ironically I bought solderless patch leads and have had to solder replacements so I can send them back..........

Fuzzdog

Sounds like they put as much attention into their use of the English language as they do into making reliable cables.

monquixote

I've had a Planet Waves cable for a while and I have found that with some guitars (most notably a Telecaster) the cable would just pop out all over the place. I put it down to having an over sized jack. 

I also have a Diago solder free patch cable which died after a couple of months.

I'm planning on getting some Kabl ones.

Deijavoo

I only have PW including my whole board having those same patch cables. Now I have less pedals I was thinking of selling them but for no other reason than just having excess. Are they really that bad?

johnonguitar

I've only ever used PW cables since I stopped buying cables from Argos.

Have had one cable go a little crackly in 13 years of gigging for a living. They get the job done.

sticker

I've stopped using PW after having 2 cables get stuck inside the jack sockets of my V-drums .