Poor's man 1/4 connector... (with pictures!)

[bleubleu]

Hi!

I bought ton of these connectors from effectsconnection.com hoping to connect all my pedals together. This site usually have great product and good prices, but these are just terrible. Most of them came in broken and need reassembling and they break easily.

But I realized you can screw two of them together to create a 1/4 pedal-to-pedal connector. It's uglier than the ones they sell at the store, but it works great! I bend one of the pin so there is good contact. Now i dont feel like I completely waster my money.

Mat

[hubble]

hey thats pretty cool! who cares if its ugly as long as it works

[pi22seven]

Okay, that's pretty damn crafty.

I've had 1/4" plugs like that and ended up tossing them all out.

[Phorhas]

Super!

[BoostAddict]

is that also the same one's they sell at futurlec?

[aron]

did you have to solder the tabs together inside? If so, how did you do it? Good idea BTW.

[Mark Hammer]

I flipped mine around the other way.
If you have a series of same-make pedals that all have the side-mounted jack in exactly the same place/height, what you have (both plugs on-axis) is perfectly adequate. I use the same thing for a couple of Line 6 Tonecore stereo docks in series.  The advantage of the offset version I show here is that it works with different-make pedals that may have the jack at different locations and especially different heights.  Obviously, one is limited to the radius afforded by the size of the plug, but it is only a little less freedom of movement than what you get with more expensive pre-made ones.  I pay about $1.60 for a pair of 90-degree plugs (tax included) at a place near me, which is a darn sight cheaper than the $5.95 (+ tax) I had to pay for a premade one recently.

One of the nice things about what you show is that it actually occupies LESS room between pedals, making for a more compact pedalboard.  The down-side is that some commercial pedals have their power jacks mounted on the sides instead of at the back where they ought to be.  So, unless you can find compact right-angle plugs for power, you have to find some way to keep adjacent pedals a little further apart.

[ambulancevoice]

did you have to solder the tabs together inside? If so, how did you do it? Good idea BTW.

maybe he soldered a tiny bit of wire bettween them and just mushed them together

EDIT: i just noticied that it says how he did it in the post

[carrejans]

You can buy them like this too.

[Mark Hammer]

Yeah, I have some of those too.  And, as noted, they work well IF the pedals have the jacks at exactly the same height.

In some cases, as well, where you might have two output jacks, such as a sum and difference output on a phaser or chorus, or perhaps a separate wet and dry output, these solid male-to-male connectors will work fine for one of the output but not allow enough space, sometimes, to fit in another patch cable to direct elsewhere.

Bottom line is that they work extremely well...when circumstances allow.

[Morocotopo]

 The straight back to back adapters (with no cable) have another problem: they will possibly break your pedal´s jacks. Even if your pedals have the same jack height, when you step on them, especially if they are velcro mounted on a pedalboard, they will move slightly, putting stress in the jacks. If the jacks are soldered to the circuit board, they´ll break the solder connections, or get loose at the chassis mounting, or worse, crack the board. I noticed some commercial FX´s have the jacks mounted only to the PCB, not to the chassis! Those are the most fragile.
I use those for space reasons but with a short (approx. 10 cm.) cable to provide relief/freedom of movement.

Morocotopo

[jakenold]

I got a good deal on about a hundred of Switchcraft's version of that plug. It's really awesome - great, quality feel, tight fit and cool look.

Good job there!

Kind regards, Jake