Effect Gizmo Issue - Loop always on?

R

reamplab

Member
Hey Guys,

I'm racking up my pedals using an Effects Gizmo and it's been working great in my testing so far, but all of a sudden the loop I'm using to send to my delay is always on.

I'm using Loop 9, the input comes from a line out of the amp and I'm using the send to turn the delay on/off.

When the loop is off, there is significant bleed into the delay pedal & amp. When I first hooked everything up it was dead silent when I switched the loop off. It seems to have gotten worse over the course of the week.

Any thoughts? Can I meter anything to understand if it's a hardware failure or something else like input level or something?

Thanks for your help.
 
Sounds to me (although I'm no expert) like the relay is sticking slightly - not completely breaking the contact. It happens on occasion with anything relay based - PC power supplies are notorious for it. Hitting them with a rubber mallet usually resolves that, but I am NOT suggesting you do that with your Effect Gizmo. However, tapping it gently might help.

A workaround might be to swap the jacks plugged into loop 9 with TRS jacks, and only connect the ring (hot) and the sleeve (ground) - because the loops are stereo-capable, this would force it to use the other relay instead.

Coincidentally, I also had a problem with loop 9 on mine - the button was not working reliably. I took the lid off, sprayed compressed air into the switch on the circuit board, levered it very slightly further off the circuit board (but not enough to break any contacts) and it works perfectly again. I like electronics that's on the level I can understand :)
 
That would be really unfortunate since it just arrived directly from RJM this week. :?

I'm going to do some testing today, and see what I can come up with short of breaking the unit open. If I can't figure it out I'll just call them tomorrow to see if they can shed any light on the subject.

Thanks for the thoughts though!
 
Best bet might be to give them a call (or drop Ron an email) tomorrow. They might just suggest sending it in for a swapout if it's a faulty component.
 
It's pretty unusual for a relay to have a partial failure like that. Usually, they either work completely or not at all.

First question: what are you using to power the Effect Gizmo? The included power supply or another?

Can you try taking all of the cables you have plugged in to loop 9 and move them to another loop (loop 10)? That would be the best test to see if it's the relay or something external.
 
Hey Guys,

Thanks for the replies, I need to change my preferences here as the forum didn't notify me I had replies..

The behavior happened with both the RJM supply and the Rocktron supply when I was using it to phantom power my All Access, however it didn't go into total failure until I used the All Access power supply. Should I expect to have problems using a Rocktron power supply? I read it would work on these forums, and it's 2 amps, which should be more than enough to power both units. Thoughts?

I can check the adjacent loop thing this weekend when I get back to the shop to play around. That would indeed shed some light on the subject.

-Chris
 
The Rocktron supply (at least the ones I've seen) are 9VAC, 2 amp supplies, which is definitely what you want when powering the RG-16 and All Access together. The RG-16's 1 amp supply isn't sufficient to handle both.

I'd recommend testing the power situation by powering the RG-16 and All Access separately (important: use a 5-pin MIDI cable to connect them when using separate power supplies!). See if the problem goes away when both are powered by their own supplies.
 
Yep, that's right 9v 2amp. The behavior was there although slight when they were powered separately, but I'll do some formal testing this weekend and get back to you with my results so we can get it squared away.

Other than this issue everything is working great so far. Seamless switching and everything is super quiet. I'll post some diagrams and pics once the rig is racked and ready to go.
 
I finally got a moment to test this tonight. I tested the effects gizmo only.. loops 9 and 10 using both the RJM supply and the rocktron supply and it worked well with no leakage in both scenarios. What I didn't get a chance to test tonight was hooking up the All Access via phantom power. I'll have to test that out one night this week.

It's a little strange that it's working now but didn't before. But I'm just using whatever cables I've got lying around, so it could have been something stray like that. We'll find out later this week for sure.
 
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