Avoid Lumberg jacks like the plague!

[jeffwhitfield]

Where did you get them? My knock-offs came direct from the manufacturer in China so I got a screaming deal on them, but they're unusably bad. I tried to buy Lumbergs direct to get a price break since I do reasonable quantity, but they require a $10k minimum order

Tayda. No telling where they got them from. Probably from the same place. After all, they ship from Indonesia.

 

[jeffwhitfield]

I get mine from LMS, always have. They are my preferred jack in a pedal with the enclosed with teeth from sbp being my second favorite.

I’ve started getting a lot of stuff from other vendors. Been getting certain things from StompBoxParts (pots for instance). LMS is a damn good vendor. Need to start ordering stuff from them more often.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Tayda. No telling where they got them from. Probably from the same place. After all, they ship from Indonesia.

Weird… the Tayda lumberg jacks are advertised as legit Karl Lumberg brand jacks, and the picture you posted does have the “(EST) Japan” mark on it, which I’ve only seen on the legit ones. Don’t know what could be causing that problem for you. Sorry to hear that

 

[jeffwhitfield]

Weird… the Tayda lumberg jacks are advertised as legit Karl Lumberg brand jacks, and the picture you posted does have the “(EST) Japan” mark on it, which I’ve only seen on the legit ones. Don’t know what could be causing that problem for you. Sorry to hear that

Another possibility: The jacks were subjected to consistent levels of heat, either by sitting in a hot warehouse and/or during shipping. The plastics could have softened enough to where the added heat from a soldering iron on the contact leads could have made the brittle. End result would be a failing jack. Not sure how it could be avoided.

 

[vigilante398]

Weird… the Tayda lumberg jacks are advertised as legit Karl Lumberg brand jacks, and the picture you posted does have the “(EST) Japan” mark on it, which I’ve only seen on the legit ones. Don’t know what could be causing that problem for you. Sorry to hear that

The fake ones I got from Daier (a common supplier Tayda uses) also have "(EST) Japan" stamped on them, I'll grab some pictures when I get home. I used a couple in prototypes, but I still have 50 or so gathering dust on a shelf

 

[thesoundofjusticefx]

That’s likely the issue. I suppose that unless they’re official Lumberg jacks then they’re not worth using.

I'm curious where you bought them from? I've used those Lumberg jacks for years without the problems you described until they were unavailable/then too expensive to get again. But I have had nothing but problems with knockoff versions, like from tayda.

 

[jeffwhitfield]

I'm curious where you bought them from? I've used those Lumberg jacks for years without the problems you described until they were unavailable/then too expensive to get again. But I have had nothing but problems with knockoff versions, like from tayda.

I think that's the problem. I don't think what I got were official Lumberg jacks. These had a serious design flaw. The plastic area that the metal part of the jack pushes up against isn't fully solid around it and can get weak over time. In this case, it's weak right out of the gate. Don't understand why they're designed this way.

 

[Feral Feline]

They're designed as such so as to hold long enough that you put them in a build and get a few uses before breaking and requiring new jacks and since your pedal layout is based on saving space with this specific jack (or why use them at all?), then you need/must...

... buy them again.

 

[HamishR]

Overall if you know what to get pedal parts are improving. The first pedal I repaired was a Matchless Hotbox, an expensive preamp pedal which runs two 12AX7s at full operating voltages via an internal transformer. The switches were those useless "X-wing" style stomp switches which melt just by turning on a soldering iron in the same room. I found out the hard way and eventually installed the now ubiquitous blues stomp switches we all use these days.

And I learnt very quickly to only use Switchcraft jacks. Although these days Lumberg and Neutrik seem ok too. Life is too short to spend it replacing bad quality Chinese and Taiwanese jacks.