Replacing "Six Pads" Jacks with "Two Pads" Jacks On a PCB...

[Caldo71]

Okay this might sound like dummy talk because I don't know the proper terminology so bear with me...

So you guys know how all of the PCBs that are sold by pedalpcb.com use the typical old-school 1/4" mono jacks for inputs/outputs that require only two leads—"positive" and "ground", right?

Well I have this other PCB-based project (it's not a stomp box it's an effects looper) that uses those much more "fancy" 1/4" mono jacks that have not two, but SIX contact pins going into the PCB...this kinda situation...



...but I don't WANT to use those fancy jacks! In truth I'm hoping to "hard wire" the ins/outs on the stomp box PCBs DIRECTLY to the in/out PCBs of the looper kit. Because it's not really gonna be a looper with external jacks on a floorboard connected to a bunch of freestanding pedals or any of that nonsense...this is all gonna be housed internally in a rack-mountable enclosure.

So this is probably really basic shit that I should know, but can someone here possibly do some scribbles on that second image (the PCB) to tell me which of those six pads are the "+" and the "ground" and if I need to jumper any of the other pads to bypass the whole open/closed circuit thing that those fancy jacks are intended for?

Thanks in advance.

 

[bhcarpenter]

It’s hard to tell the orientation of the PCB from the photo, but those are TRS switched jacks. The “switched” part means they have an extra contact that is connected whenever a plug is not inserted. Sometimes folks use this to make/break a ground connection to shut off power when a plug is disconnected. For your looper I’d guess the switching function isn’t used and you can just solder your jack to the two appropriate pads.

To find the right pads, you can think of it in rows where “sleeve” is closest to the edge of the enclosure, “ring” is in the middle, and “tip” is farthest away. For your case you can likely ignore the ring row altogether. Ground will be one of the two pads on the “sleeve” row. Signal will be one of the two pads on the “tip” row.

My best guess from your photos is that you want the top right and bottom right pads, but it’s probably best to check continuity with your multimeter. If it’s not those two, it would be top left/bottom left.

 

[Caldo71]

Gotcha thank you…makes sense!