Jet City Footswitches Keep Dying

gubble

Hi Guys

I know a few of us have Jet City amps. I adore the amp however have serious issues with the footwswitches breaking.

I've had the amp since July and have already had one footswitch replaced under warranty. Both times there's a problem with the cable, however it went down this time during soundcheck, very annoying as i rely on having two channels at a gig (thankfully my trusty Boss SD-1 came in handy as a boost).

As it's under warranty i'm going to be getting back in touch with the guys at Jet City, however i was thinking can i use another footswitch as a replacement, or maybe even build one which is going to be a bit more gig worthy. I do look after my gear. The footswitch is put away carefully at the end of each gig in my small leads flightcase & I've not had any other leads go down before.

 

p90fool

If it's always the cable just put a jack socket on it so you can use any cable.

gubble

That's a good idea for sure !!!!!!

 

ICBM

Footswitches with attached cables are notorious for this - usually the cable breaks at the clamp where it goes into the switch. If you cut the cable there and remove the clamp, the hole is normally big enough to fit a standard jack, so converting it is about five minute's work for a tech.

digitalscream

I always found two problems with the footswitch on JC amps:

1 - It's too wide

2 - Cable wasn't long enough

I just went to Bright Onion and got them to send me an enclosure (with a mono jack socket), latching switch and an LED and wired it up myself. The trick here is that they work backwards to normal footswitches - the amp's default (with the switch "off") is to be on the drive channel. It's pretty easy to copy the circuit, but bear in mind you need a 65k resistor as well (if you're not going to reuse the one in the JC switch).

gubble

Looks like a quick trip to maplin at lunchtime then a play with the soldering iron toinght then !

 

If i simply pop in a standard Jack can I just use a spare guitar lead do we think?

I've also just had an idea as to how i can wire this in properly to my board..........

digitalscream

gubble said:

If i simply pop in a standard Jack can I just use a spare guitar lead do we think?

Yep. That's exactly what I do, in fact.

gubble

Awesome tip thank you !

I'll be doing this for sure. I've a spare 'out' jack on my pedalboard so will probably wire it into this for a nice permanant approach. Then simply guitar lead out of the back of the board into the footswitch jack of the amp - simples !