silvertonessuckbutigotone Posted January 2, 2005 Report Share Posted January 2, 2005 Hey guys I had an idea. Usually to save your battery life people unplug the cable from the jack when they have EMGs. I had an idea after working on my pickup winder. Instead of unpluggin you could just have a switch that goes from the battery to the input jack and whenever you are using it, just flip the switch and the battery wouldnt be drained of life I dont think. If any smarter people in electronics (ansil, lovekraft, and others) know this wont work or it will work let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted January 2, 2005 Report Share Posted January 2, 2005 of course it will work...all you need is a mini toggle...but it is not practical imo. it is much easier to just get in the habit of unplugging Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvertonessuckbutigotone Posted January 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 I also thought about cool effects like flipping the switch in the middle of a note to sound like a skipping cd or something that would be kinda cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Cavanaugh Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 The output jack is a stereo jack wired up to disconnect the negative part of the battery when there's no plug inserted. It's basically a switch in it self. Stompboxes like Boss ones do the same thing with the input jack because the switching system is active, so even on bypass mode, it's using some juice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 The idea is sound, but not strictly useful. How often do you find yourself in a situation where you don't need to play, but unplugging is simply out of the question? If you have trouble with your battery dying too quickly, I'm pretty sure wiring two (or more) 9V batteries in parallel will give you results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvertonessuckbutigotone Posted January 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 oh i see and I realized that you could do that cd skipping effect if you have a 3 way selector and you have the bridge PU all the way down and you flip the switch from the enck to the bridge it has the same effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Vai Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 That's a killswitch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 In a way. Killswitches cut the pickup signal. This cuts the juice to the preamp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrashncrust Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 Hey guys I had an idea. Usually to save your battery life people unplug the cable from the jack when they have EMGs. I had an idea after working on my pickup winder. Instead of unpluggin you could just have a switch that goes from the battery to the input jack and whenever you are using it, just flip the switch and the battery wouldnt be drained of life I dont think. If any smarter people in electronics (ansil, lovekraft, and others) know this wont work or it will work let me know. i actually had an idea similar to this, but it included switching the battery off and switching to a passive neck pickup (at the time i didnt have the money to buy 2 emgs). you would have the emg and passive going to a switch, and have the battery wire going to another switch. you would then wire the battery connector in and wire in a jack. you would have to mount the switches real close to each other so you could switch them fast. i think that would work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 I've done this on a couple of my guitars. I use one pole of the switch to break the battery connection and the other to short the output to ground - resulting in a battery kill and signal kill switch. The main reason I like to have one is because I use the sustainiac. With that, there is a special guitar plug that is tied to the cable at the end of the neck. It's just a lot easier for me to leave the cable in rather than mess with it every time I play. I don't know if I'd use it as much with a normal setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marossy Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 I have a bass with active pickups and a power on/off switch on the face of the guitar. What I don't like about it is that if I forget to turn it off or it somehow unintentionally gets turned on, the battery is dead the next day... I like the stereo jack switching scheme better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitarmonky55 Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 unless you have your guitar loaded with tons of stuff sucking the juice......is it really a problem? i have guitars with emgs in them and rarely have to replace the batteries(4-5 months), and i play alot too. and i sure have never had the batteries totally fart out on me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheapguitarist Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 back to the killswitch, how would you build a simple killswitch like the one that bloke from radiohead has. Is it just a SPDT switch with the first connection away from the pickups, the second one coming from the pickups and the last connection to ground. I magine this crude diagram below as the underside of a SPDT switch. | o-|------<pickups | o-|------>tone pot or selector switch | o-|-------- ground Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 Easiest, simplest killswitch simply shorts the output to ground, like this: | o-|------>N/C | o-|------>output | o-|------>ground Anything more is overkill. This has been discussed to death on several previous occasions. BTW, has anybody considered that power switching is likely to cause loud clicks or pops that could destroy your speakers at higher volumes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 I don't normally use the switch with anything powered up. I have wanted to do a momentary switch for a while now. I just haven't had a chance to find an appropriate switch and guitar to try it out on. Not to sidetrack too much here but does anyone know if Randy Rhoads had anything fancier than a momentary switch wired in (ala Tribute CD)? Is it just the construction of the momentary switches that keep things from popping or did he have something to suppress those clicks/pops? Would a debounce circuit be of any use in an application like this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 hmm theres a nice project involving a gold supercap a couple of transistors a regulator that gives you 9v of power very low ma but you could recharge the guitar in 20 seconds. 9@1A perhaps a better alternative to batteries and disconecting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 Signal switching shouldn't cause pops because there's no DC level change - power switching is likely to induce transients as the caps discharge through the output. AFAIK, Randy used the old trick of turning the neck pickup all the way down and using the selector switch to cut the signal - again, no DC, no pops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 hey lk you round man i am in chat at DIY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spirit Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 Sorry, this post is off topic, but ansil, I'd like to PM you, but your inbox is full. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 Just e-mail him. That's what I do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darren wilson Posted January 5, 2005 Report Share Posted January 5, 2005 Wouldn't Randy Rhoads have just used his Les Paul (or dual volume/tone Jackson V) and its standard 3-way selector with one of the pickups turned all the way down? Or did he have a special kill switch on his guitars? Tom Morello's kill switch is a Les Paul style 3-way toggle that's wired up so the signal is ON on both sides of the switch, but OFF in the middle. That's how he gets those cool fluttery gate effects. He can just flick it back and forth really quickly and get super-fast stutters happening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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