WARNING! SWITCHCRAFT BEWARE!!!

[darron]

let me begin with a story...

a good friend of mine was happily toiling away building a fuzz box. he was very proud of his work. joyfully he plugged in his finely tuned instrument only to receive dissatisfaction.

"why is there no sound?" shaun asked himself. "surely i've made a simple error".

alas, there was no music passing through his fuzz box even while in bypass mode. he double checked for errors in the signal path to and from the switch, as well as continuity of earth. after finding no faults, he decided to desolder the switch and check for an open circuit. the switch had no signal going in to it at all. as a matter of fact, there was no signal even coming from the input socket. shaun disconnected the input jack and found a signal on the hot tip of it. very curious (or infuriating, i can't recall...).


"hold the phone, something is amiss!". shaun noticed that the input jack looked somehow different. these were the jacks that his friend darron had recommended and given to him. he compared his installed input jack to another, which looked identical, and then another, which was not!

the moral of the story, is that we can not trust even our most basic assumptions. assume the world is trying to destroy you slowly and surely.





anyway....





here are some pictures of the dodgy switchcraft sockets. the two on the left marked with a red loop show and EXTRA metal ring. when jiggled, the signal would either pass or have full attenuation to earth. clearly this is an error in the manufacturing, and possibly an attempt to fix said error.

this is so very disappointing that switchcraft would manufacture this crap. now i have to double check all of the input sockets that i have in stock as they could accidentally slip out and fail on stage somewhere.... the image on the right shows an example of a good socket with no extra ring.

[ghostsauce]

With something like that, I am reminded of the horror stories about cheap knock-off items that are made with lead or lead paint, etc.  If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that it was either an employee's first day on the job or it possibly is a knockoff selling under switchcraft's name.  It happens with everything else, why not parts

What an ordeal though..

[darron]

i agree. first-day cover up fits nicely.

i bought the parts from a reputable source that we all use... you know... and they all look pretty authentic.

[RedHouse]

Contact and send them back to switchcraft, they will make good. They're a great company and make great stuff, I'm certain they would want to see them.

Are you SURE they're not chinese knock-off's? there's some chinese knock-offs going around as genuine Switchcraft parts.

[Mark Hammer]

I ran into excatly this same thing, and posted about it in another thread. Exasperating, since it is one of the last things you'd suspect, so you don't look for it until after you've gone through a near endless assortment of other trouble-shooting attempts.

[jasperoosthoek]

I've replaced all my through body Switchcraft jack sockets with Neutrik sockets.
Neutrik has the ones you need too:

Neutrik type: NYS230

I don't know if they are better but I have only heard good stuff about the brand.

[wavley]

Well, good company or not, manufacturing flaws WILL happen.

This just gives us a place to give a quick check when troubleshooting, thanks for the heads up.  We learn from things like this, just like I learned this weekend when I was working on a friend's AD30 "When it's digital, try a factory reset before you completely take it apart looking for something broken."

[jrod]

Thanks for the heads-up! If I were debugging a circuit, I would have NEVER found that!

[darron]

these swithcrafts (when working) are the best that i have experienced in any socket, and i am used to them making top notch stuff which is why i am so surprised to see this happen.

i didn't want to drop a name, but they came from smallbear, so i'd think he'd have a consistent supplier, so i doubt the fault is the source. if they are chinese knockoffs then they have done an excellent job except for the detail of not working.


it's true that we have all agreed that it's a VERY difficult fault to find. if a new member posted his voltage readouts we probably couldn't help him debug the circuit EVER and his attemps would be wasted.

i could send them back, and probably should for the sake of the company any not myself. i'm overseas and of course cost of shipping outweighs any financial benefit.


i've tried the neutrick ones supplied by RS components, and unless they were the wrong ones i didn't like them anywhere near as much as switchcraft... even from that picture they are as i remember them with the 'impure' textured metal. the machining on the switchcraft thread is excellent.




anyway, the main point is to double check before installing....

thanks guys (:

[darron]

I ran into excatly this same thing, and posted about it in another thread. Exasperating, since it is one of the last things you'd suspect, so you don't look for it until after you've gone through a near endless assortment of other trouble-shooting attempts.

could you please link me Mark? i just had a quick look but i'm really tired lol

[jasperoosthoek]

i've tried the neutrick ones supplied by RS components, and unless they were the wrong ones i didn't like them anywhere near as much as switchcraft... even from that picture they are as i remember them with the 'impure' textured metal. the machining on the switchcraft thread is excellent.

I don't have much experience with these type of sockets. I have replaced one of those with one of these in my friends guitar:

Are these any better?

The switchcraft through body sockets I have used are crap:

The lugs inside have a tendency to bend and loose contact. It happened in all three guitars I have with that socket. I have replaced one with a similar Neutrik socket. Time will tell if the Neutrik is any better.

[darron]

jasperoosthoek,

the enclosed sockets that you have shown are good when you don't have much room and/or worried about a short. they don't have as much inward pressure and don't make that perfectly reassuring click, but feel pretty much like any ibanez socket.

i think the fully open ones are the way to go if you can afford it in the build. if it's a hollowing in a guitar then definitely but it doesn't look like what you'd be after.



i emailed switchcraft as suggested. waiting for a response.

[Galego]

jasperoosthoek,

the enclosed sockets that you have shown are good when you don't have much room and/or worried about a short. they don't have as much inward pressure and don't make that perfectly reassuring click, but feel pretty much like any ibanez socket.

(...)

If space is not an issue, these are the ones i like better:


And they do 3 clicks, that's obviously better than one click. 

[darron]

Galego, but then do you use the USA or the UK version? hehe

[rnfr]

jasperoosthoek,

the enclosed sockets that you have shown are good when you don't have much room and/or worried about a short. they don't have as much inward pressure and don't make that perfectly reassuring click, but feel pretty much like any ibanez socket.

(...)

If space is not an issue, these are the ones i like better:


And they do 3 clicks, that's obviously better than one click. 

metal nuts on plastic threads means one turn too many and you are stripped out.  i used these once and never again.  lucky i bought more than one set!  anyone want to trade for some switchcrafts?  i'll even throw in the stripped one!

[jasperoosthoek]

Thanks guys! So the way I see it those sockets provide a better connection but you have to be careful with mounting them.

I was thinking of maybe using one of these in my to be designed Frankenstrat guitar:

So you can use a standard jack and a custom XLR cable. Maybe a bit too progressive for some but I know that Frank Zappa used XLRs on most of his guitars. I don't want to go XLR all the way. Imagine breaking or losing your cable and you don't have a replacement.

[aron]

Can you show us the stamp that says switchcraft on the jacks?

[Rob Strand]

if they are chinese knockoffs then they have done an excellent job except for the detail of not working.

There's so much fake stuff out there, not just in electronics.
(Look up fake headphones, even Amazon was selling fake Sennheiser headphones!)

Tell Switchcraft, they will know about any manufacturing issues/changes.
They will definitely want to know if there's dodgy fakes on the market.

[darron]

aron, here's a high-res shot of a 'suspect' one...


i'm in touch with a guy called Stephen Waldron at switchcraft. we've been getting back and forth with a few emails, pretty much a message per day with the time difference i suppose. i have the impression that he is not familiar with this. it's very interesting to hear Mark Hammer having the same fault. we keep in tight circles though here so may have even seen the same batch.


will inform of future actions and news (:

[aron]

So what you are saying is that the tip shorts out to ground when installed in a pedal? Highly unusual.