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New to electronics, I have a question.

Started by malephik, August 02, 2007, 03:40:36 AM

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malephik

As you can see in the title, I'm new to electronics (relatively because I do know how to solder, having gone to an electronics "club-thingie" - not a very good one, hence the name -  ,although I'm out of practice. Actually I wasn't very good at it to begin with :'( ).
I read most of the posts on "the newcomer's forum" and tried to do the 5th gear overdrive but was not very successful. For one thing, how do I connect the jacks to the whole thing? They each have 2 electrodes(I think) and in the schematic there's only 1 wire coming out from or going into the jack. The jack in actually has 6 plates(3 pairs): I'm guessing that one pair is for one electrode and the other two are for the other.
And another question: are the 3 lines, each progressively smaller that the other equivalent to a downwards pointing arrow, meaning the ground (that's the (-) isn't it?)?

   Since this is the newcomer's forum, i thought it would be ok to ask these questions. I apologize if otherwise. Thank you in advance.

teemuk

#1
Damn... the imagehost for 5th Gear OD schematic is down. I'm answeting "blind" in this one so take it with a grain of salt:

Quote from: malephik on August 02, 2007, 03:40:36 AM
For one thing, how do I connect the jacks to the whole thing? They each have 2 electrodes(I think) and in the schematic there's only 1 wire coming out from or going into the jack.

The wire shown is the wire carrying the signal. Besides that you also need the wire for common reference ("ground") - sometimes this connection is omitted from the schematics, as the jack wiring methods are assumed to be pretty common knowledge.

Quote
The jack in actually has 6 plates(3 pairs): I'm guessing that one pair is for one electrode and the other two are for the other.

Don't guess: Measure.

What you likely have is a stereo jack with connections to "tip", "ring" and "sleeve" plus some sort of an internal switch - or few of them. Switchcraft lists about 37 different switching configurations in their catalog for phone jacks. Although there are only about 4 very common ones you should never assume anything. Take a multimeter and a phono plug and measure which "plates" of the jack connect to which in the plug. Also, check if any "plates" have connectivity to each other while the phone plug is in or out. In case you don't know how: Use multimeter's resistance measuring function. You will read either a short or a very high resistance. Short indicates a connection.

And you might want to read this one....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_plug

joecool85

Sorry about that, my old server is offline now and it would be impossible for me to go through all of my internet posts and replace the old url with the new one haha.  Anyway, here it is:

Life is what you make it.
Still rockin' the Dean Markley K-20X
thatraymond.com

teemuk

Just to add up, R. G. Keen did a wondeful job when he wrote an article about the typical wiring arrangements for FX pedals:

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/wrapper/wrapper.htm

malephik

#4
Thanks, I've learned something, but I think I need to read some more on this subject so I've taken out a book on electronics from the local library.
I have another question though: If I did something wrong with my effect, can I damage my guitar or amp/audio system by trying it out?

I've taken the disscution to a new topic:
http://www.ssguitar.com/index.php?topic=552.0