Switchers receiving voltage from Channel Switch Jack

Q & A for building and interfacing your rack gear with Ground Control Pro and GCX-based systems.
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ozzynotwood
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:57 am

Switchers receiving voltage from Channel Switch Jack

Post by ozzynotwood »

Bear with me, I'm not an electronics expert, I can wire up a Strat by copying a Seymour Duncan diagram & that's it :)

Bit of an interesting problem has come up with the BOSS ES series switchers. I'm asking about it here because I'm a GCX/GCP user & want to be informed for future amp purchases which would be used with my GCX. I do not own any BOSS ES switchers & I won't in the future.

Here we go.....

The CTRL jacks that control channel switching on the ES series are dying at a fast & regular rate (based on my observations at other forums). There is speculation that some amps (for example, Fender) are sending out voltages through their channel switch jacks that are more than the BOSS ES can handle. I would like to purchase a Fender amp in the near future & switch channels with the GCX. Obviously I don't want to damage my GCX. I can confirm no damage after years of use switching channels on my Rockerverb MKII & I've never read of any problems with channel switching with Voodoo Lab products aside from 'user error' ;)

The faults are happening within the first year of use, never instantly. The forum posts also indicate there are no other theories as to why these jacks are failing within the first 12 months. The CTRL jacks can control other things but it seems it's only affecting users who are channel switching.

Is there such a thing as Voltage Limitation when using channel switch functions on any switcher?
Are there any limitations I need to be aware of with the GCX for channel switching?


Long live Voodoo Lab, I don't need 1,000 useless features, I only need the GCX to do what it already does :)

JohnClark
Posts: 7494
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 2:33 pm
Location: The Lab

Re: Switchers receiving voltage from Channel Switch Jack

Post by JohnClark »

Almost all switching jacks will have some sort of voltage potential. Particularly the "make or break" type circuits that are most common.

The relays in a GCX are rated quite high, in fact we haven't seen a channel or function of an amp ever actually break one.

I hope that helps!
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ozzynotwood
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Switchers receiving voltage from Channel Switch Jack

Post by ozzynotwood »

JohnClark wrote:Almost all switching jacks will have some sort of voltage potential. Particularly the "make or break" type circuits that are most common.

The relays in a GCX are rated quite high, in fact we haven't seen a channel or function of an amp ever actually break one.

I hope that helps!
Good to see you know all about it, BOSS seemed to have missed the mark on this one. I'm a BOSS user myself for their single pedals but looks like they may have dun goofed their ES line. GCX still doing exactly was it needs to do without fault :)

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