Faulty Jack??

[enigmur]

How common are faulty jacks?

I've been having an intermittant problem with my fuzz face.

Sometimes I'll go to turn it on and get nothing but rustling and weird sounds, if I turn it off then back on its the same thing. If I un-plug then plug back in it fixes it straight away.

Im wondering if the sleeve isnt connecting properly or something? All other connections in the input jack are snugly touching the plug.

Either that or I may have some weird power problem, though I've gone thru and resoldered any connections where the wire looks thin.

I guess Ill have to try a new jack next, but if that doesnt help, does anyone have a suggestion to try?

[hellwood]

maybe a bad/loose ground?

[GibsonGM]

If you don't use an actual ground wire to your output jack, sometimes this happens. I tend to use the box for that ground connection.  I lightly sand the inside surface of my stompbox to ensure good contact, and make sure my output jack is screwed down tightly.  You can also clean the jack with electrical parts cleaner/fine sandpaper to make sure it's not corroded....or replace the damn thing.   

Another thing to look at is to be sure when the tip swings inside the box, it isn't disrupting some wires or something (I've had that happen!). 

[johngreene]

How common are faulty jacks?

How common are faulty grounds?

Very. As hellwood mentions.

--john

[enigmur]

Ive gone over every ground in it and resoldered. I will do it again though just to make sure because this pedal kicks way too much bootie to be sitting on the bench!

It just seems odd that when the input is unplugged and replugged that it fixes it, Ive checked my power connections too...

I will figure it out!

[Processaurus]

You might check for corrosion on the jack contacts, that can cause strange behavior when the stereo jack trick is used to connect the battery.

[hellwood]

open it up and get it to act like a bitch, then w/ a short jumper wire to a good known ground, probe around starting w/ the ground on the input jack in question and then the pots. if you find your problem, solder a new ground wire in. done!

[jlullo]

i've had this problem before, and its been that the ground on my switch was poorly soldered.... like everyone else said

in all honesty, a faulty jack doesn't seem very likely... there isn't really anything to fail, just 3 contacts..

[aron]

Try a different cable. Yamaha made some purple color cables that have the weirdest plugs. They don't work on half of the jacks around. Crappy.

Also do everything everyone else mentioned of course.

[petemoore]

  Ive gone over every ground in it and resoldered.
  I guess Ill have to try a new jack next, but if that doesnt help, does anyone have a suggestion to try?
  Go over all that with a DMM, different cable isn't a bad idea to verify that portion of the chain, also battery...I have old re-chargeded batteries which are intermittent...of course you said it's 'dodgy' in bypass.
  Yes, I'd whip out the DMM, plug cables through the box and test from tip to tip whether the cables, internal bypass wiring and switch are actually working on paper, since they aren't working...hopefully the DMM is sensative enough to find and show that.
  Another alternative I've used to debug a switch or wire is use testclipped wire or just a clip across the suspected wire or switch lugs...by mapping alternate routes, the main route can sometimes be found as faulty, and where the fault is can be narrowed down by moving the entrance and exit points of the 'alternate route' wiring.
  Example, using [clip>wire>clip] testwire...I'll clip the one end to cable of input jack, the other end to tip of output jack, if that fixes it...move the alternate wires entrance point or exit point past this, then that [say wire, then switch output lug, then switch's other output lug...etc. narrowing the fault to the smallest number of chained items possible...then re-work in that area.

[enigmur]

Cheers everyone, you were right, it was either a dodgey solder or the cable was damaged somewhere.

I discovered my DMM has the continuity checker on it (for some reason it is coupled with the diode reading function.) So I probed around and everywhere seemed to be grounding nicely, except the sleeve of the input jack had trouble sometimes, so I cut that wire back and re soldered. It didnt die on me once last night during a 2 hr jamski in my room.

HOPEFULLY its fixed - though I thought i'd fixed it last time.

Dont you hate intermittant problems???

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Yeah, nothing more annoying than a break in a cable near the pllug. Maybe we should prune our cables each year, snip a foot off each end & rewire them.
Seriously though, when this happens, it's kind of a sign of 'cable abuse' don't you think?