on off switch

Heft

Junior Member
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I have a guitar I've been fiddling with. I wanted to put an on/off switch from an amp in the upper toggle location to act as a kill switch. I can't for the life of me get the guitar to make noise. Before I resolder everything without the on/off switch, is this something that might just not be compatible?
Thanks in advance!
 
Did you check continuity of the switch?  How do you have it wired?  Do you have it dumping signal to ground or do you have it opening the signal side of the circuit?
 
its a SPST Fender style amp switch. I tried hooking it up as a "light switch" between the output and the rest of the signal, I also tried using it to short the signal straight to ground. Right now the best I can do is get it making "screeching'' noises in one position and a low hum in the other.


Spud said:
How many terminals are on the back?

To be clear there are two total leads.
 
Take one wire from the back of the switch( it matters not which) and solder to hot on output jack, take the other and solder to the ground of output jack. Leave the existing wires on jack where they are just add the other two. It should work to intermittently shunt the signal.
 
I would take the hot wire that goes to your output jack and connect that to the switch, then connect the other terminal of the switch to the output jack. Effectively you are inserting an on off switch into the hot output. Switch on, you will have output, switch off you will not.
 
Spud said:
stratamania said:
I would take the hot wire that goes to your output jack and connect that to the switch, then connect the other terminal of the switch to the output jack. Effectively you are inserting an on off switch into the hot output. Switch on, you will have output, switch off you will not.

Isn't this exactly what I just recommended, just reworded? :laughing7:

I believe you suggested shorting hot to ground, strat's suggestion is opening and closing the connection of hot to tip.  But I've been known to misread
 
When I said "shunt" the signal I was using it (loosely) to mean break the connection. Either way, the result will be the same. Exactly the same wiring wise to interrupt the signal and give Heft an on/off switch. The signal has to go somewhere, like to ground.

 
Correct it is an on off switch SPST. It can only do make or break for a single wire.

No possibility to shunt anything from one place to another for this purpose. So no it is not saying the same thing in different words whatsoever.
 
What you described using the term shunt is connecting tip to ring on the jack side of the connection. That is shorting across the signal hence grounding it.

What strat described was putting a switch in between the hot signal from the pickups and the tip side of the jack which is interrupting the signal, not shorting it. 

If the strings were large enough and the magnets strung enough and the coils wound enough, that would result in dangerous voltages.

In the same situation, but in the shunted version the highest resistance part of the circuit would overheat.
 
This is why I always just draw a schematic rather than trying to explain it with a verbal description.    :headbang:


BTW - Spud your way will work just fine.  That's the way id do it...
 
I don't believe there is a wrong way, but maybe a way that works best for how you intend to use it.

I've personally found that just opening the circuit sometimes introduces a lot of noise, especially if you play with high gain tones.  By dumping the signal to ground instead of just opening the hot end of the circuit, it eliminates the noise from stray induction and whatever else, but there might still be a tiny bit of signal that somehow makes it through (there shouldn't be, but my guess is that the switch has a small amount of resistance, so some signal leaks through. 

Maybe the best way to do this would be to both break the circuit from the pickups and short the output jack hot to ground simultaneously, but, for my purposes, sending the signal to ground at the switch has been good enough.

I have kill switches on four of my guitars: one is a momentary push-button, one is a full-sized toggle, and the other two are mini-toggles.  I have them all wired such that the signal diverts to ground when the switch is "on."
 
See the destruction I have wrought! I don't have a lot of time to referee slap-fights here, so I usually opt for the nuclear option. Multiple posts have been deleted and/or modified. If the conversation now lacks continuity, that's why.

As a reminder, the forum rules state:

* Be kind. There are many forums on the internet that tolerate verbal attacks and abusive comments between members; this board is NOT one of them. These types of posts will simply be deleted so that we can promote a helpful, positive guitar and bass building community. Members that habitually post negative comments and perpetuate a black-cloud atmosphere will have their comments deleted and may be banned from posting without warning.
 
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