Informant Overdrive turns off

[Slurp]

A bit of a weird issue here... First of all, the pedal works totally fine under normal circumstances! When the power plug is slightly wiggled around in the power jack, the pedal intermittently turns off (sometimes in rare cases it "latches" off permanently - then I have to wiggle the power plug until it turns on again). Mostly curious if anyone else has had this issue with their informant overdrive, or could try wiggling their power plug around and report back?

I thought it was a mechanical issue with the power jack, so I swapped out the jack (different brand jack even) and the issue persisted. Tried powering with different 9V supplies, and even tried wiggling the power plugs in other pedals of mine, but only the informant overdrive flickers off. Granted, I don't have any other pedals that use an internal charge pump.

I built my informant overdrive with an LT1054 charge pump (didn't bridge the jumper on the back, also replaced the LT1054 with no change to the issue), resoldered all the power connections, replaced the pedal's LED, and even upped the 100uF power filter cap to 220uF. No change, still flickers on/off when I gently push down on the power plug in the socket.

Now, you might be thinking that this is not really a problem, but my friend who I built this pedal for plays a lot of gigs and if his board gets moved around by his foot on stage and the pedal begins flickering on/off, it is really awful over a PA system lol

Any assistance or insight would be much appreciated!

 

[music6000]

Is the pedal Power jack plastic or metal?

 

[Slurp]

Is the pedal Power jack plastic or metal?

Both the original jack and the new replacement were plastic

 

[music6000]

Are your Power supply's 2.5mm centre pin or 2.1mm???

 

[Fama]

I would think it should be related to the jack itself and not the pedal or PCB.

...but having said that, yeah my Informant also has a bad jack and doesn't get power if the plug is not all the way in. But I'm fairly sure it's because of the cheap shitty jack, because if the cable is making a connection, ground to ground and hot to hot, even if you move it around a bit that shouldn't matter, right?

 

[Erik S]

I had a batch of the small diameter knockoff lumberg jacks that all did this. I switched to the larger “innie” style and haven’t had a jack problem since.

 

[Slurp]

Are your Power supply's 2.5mm centre pin or 2.1mm???

The jack and supply are both 2.1mm, the fit is fairly tight - nothing unusual there.

I would think it should be related to the jack itself and not the pedal or PCB.

...but having said that, yeah my Informant also has a bad jack and doesn't get power if the plug is not all the way in. But I'm fairly sure it's because of the cheap shitty jack, because if the cable is making a connection, ground to ground and hot to hot, even if you move it around a bit that shouldn't matter, right?

Hmm, this was absolutely my initial reaction. I went from the jack on the right (not sure what it's called) to a knockoff lumburgh. Maybe it will be worthwhile trying another new jack, will report back later

I had a batch of the small diameter knockoff lumberg jacks that all did this. I switched to the larger “innie” style and haven’t had a jack problem since.

Uh oh, I am definitely using one of these! I'll try swapping it out.

 

[Fama]

Hmm, this was absolutely my initial reaction. I went from the jack on the right (not sure what it's called) to a knockoff lumburgh. Maybe it will be worthwhile trying another new jack, will report back later

Yeah same here, it's the cheapo Tayda knockoff. It's the only one I've had issues with (well, I think one of them also had a larger pin on the inside and the power cable just didn't fit), so it could just be random chance that we both had it happen with the same pedal. Weird, but possible.

 

[Slurp]

Yeah same here, it's the cheapo Tayda knockoff. It's the only one I've had issues with (well, I think one of them also had a larger pin on the inside and the power cable just didn't fit), so it could just be random chance that we both had it happen with the same pedal. Weird, but possible.

The weird coincidence checks out!! I tried a third power jack, and there is absolutely no flickering. I am relieved to have solved the issue, but also annoyed that Tayda's jacks are so sketchy... Brutal!

Thanks for the sanity check everyone, appreciate it.