DC Jack and Battery Operation Question

[Steve Mavronis]

Just double checking something. I found this illustration showing this method that disconnects the battery when the guitar cable is unplugged from the stompbox input, and also discionnects the battery when the wall wart is plugged into the DC Jack. This is the same way how I have my pedals wired plus the addition of an LED. But whenever the wall wart is plugged in, regardless of whether the guitar jack in plugged in the input or not, you can turn the pedal on (LED lights up) with the footswitch. Is this normal operation with no guitar jack in the input with power to the DC jack? I was up late last night with hardly any sleep so I'm not thinking clearly at the moment and questioning my own methods!

[Govmnt_Lacky]

I think what you need to do in order to accomplish the power switching that you are talking about is:

Wire the GNDs from the Battery snap AND the GND from the DC jack to the Input jack RING.

The rest of the circuit GNDs will go to the Input/Output jack SLEEVE.

Most people do not care about being able to turn the pedal on when using the wall wart because you are not wasting a battery 

[Steve Mavronis]

I think what you need to do in order to accomplish the power switching that you are talking about is:

Wire the GNDs from the Battery snap AND the GND from the DC jack to the Input jack RING.

The rest of the circuit GNDs will go to the Input/Output jack SLEEVE.

Ah yes, the input jack ring will become ground completing the DC jack circuit only when a mono plug is inserted just like for the battery. As it stands now my DC jack ground goes to the output jack sleeve which is chassis ground. I guess most people don't bother worrying about it if plugged into an external power source.

[slacker]

If you're using an external power supply it's easier to turn that off or unlug it from the wall rather than unplug all your pedals, so the ring switching thing is redundant.

[Steve Mavronis]

Yeah I'm probably not going to worry about it or bother re-wiring my pedals just for that.

LED Trivia: Instead if relying on the short leg to determine the negative Cathode connection, always go by the 'flat' side rim of most standard LED's.