Mesa Boogie Stiletto Replacement Footswitch

camf

Anyone know where I can pick one up in the UK? It's the two button channel/boost model. Is it likely to be difficult and take time?

Thanks guys.

cam f

camf

Bump for being under the right heading now!

ICBM

Westside, but be prepared to pay through the nose (or worse).

Any two-button latching footswitch without LEDs should work if you need a temporary way of getting it working. If you want the LEDs, it's slightly more complicated, since there are four possible ways of connecting them and only one will work.

camf

Thanks @ICBM. It's never cheap and easy, is it. :-)

richardhomer

I would be tempted to e-mail MESA direct - they have an excellent reputation for customer service. I e-mailed Westside in the MR days when my LSS blew a fuse and never got a reply - though as ever @ICBM came up trumps with the answer I needed

Cirrus

ICBM said:

Any two-button latching footswitch without LEDs should work if you need a temporary way of getting it working. If you want the LEDs, it's slightly more complicated, since there are four possible ways of connecting them and only one will work.

Are they easy to get into? I've got one in my practice room, if they're not too hard to open up I could take a picture of the wiring if that'd help.

ICBM

Cirrus said:

Are they easy to get into? I've got one in my practice room, if they're not too hard to open up I could take a picture of the wiring if that'd help.

Not really, because you won't be able to see the polarity of the LEDs, but it would tell you whether they're in series with the switches (most likely, all the modern Mesas are like that as far as I know) or parallel (how the early ones were).

The problem is working out whether any other footswitch from any other maker would work with it.

Cacofonix

If it's the head there are two additional sockets in the back for latching switches so any two mono pedals will do.

if it's not urgent I'll dig my pedal out at some stage and upload a photo of its innards.

camf

This place.... it's not real!

Thanks guys.

Cacofonix

@camf


Circuit board - bottom view.  LEDs on South face



Switch and LED



Guess


Switch to led and jack plug


Switch to LED

HTH

ICBM

Can you have a look and see which side the flat side of the LEDs is - they have a slightly D shaped cross section at the bottom - nearest the jack or furthest away? Unfortunately can't quite see in the pic, but if you know that you can build one which will work.

Cacofonix

All put away now.

In practice, there are only four combinations for the LEDs, so it can be breadboarded and the right combination perma-soldered.

If the one nearest the jack lights up, then there are only two possible combinations for the other one, it seems to me.

camf

I wish I knew stuff... :-)

Cacofonix

camf said:

I wish I knew stuff... :-)

You don't have to.

Wire it up like the above.

Keep the LEDs for last, and wrap wire round them as a temp connection instead of soldering them up. 

Trigger the switches. 

No lights? Invert LED 1.

Trigger the switches
No lights?  Invert LED2

Trigger the switches

No lights? Invert LED1 again.

One of those has to work.  Simples.  Solder, and assemble.

Don't earth anything to the pedal box.  The metal is isolated in the  original footswitch.

I bet ICBM could knock one of these together faster than Arnie could assemble an AK-47.

Cacofonix

I think there are hidden diodes in this switch.  It doesn't make sense unless there is some current inversion going on somewhere. Am I right @ICBM?

ICBM

Shouldn't be. Just two LEDs which are each in series with a switch. The LED draws enough current to pull down the switching in the amp at the same time as lighting itself.

Cacofonix

Confuzzled.  It looks like a single series circuit with two switches to me.

No earth for the leds if either switch is open.

I admit I am not an electronics whiz, though.

ICBM

It's two independent series circuits, one connected to each of the tip and ring contacts of the jack.

It's a double-sided PCB .

Cacofonix

ICBM said:

It's two independent series circuits, one connected to each of the tip and ring contacts of the jack.

It's a double-sided PCB .

It is double sided but translucent. Pic 1 is showing all the circuit traces on both sides of the board.  Hence my confusion.

ICBM

The ground trace must simply not be very visible, otherwise the circuit could not work at all.

Cacofonix

That's my point.  What you see is what there is.

So I was thinking there must be additional diodes in there somewhere and a dc line with perhaps either a current inverter or a cv of some sort.