Name: Steve Kennedy
Email: steve@pacair.com
Subject: RD Footswitch Scenario...
Thread: 270
Time: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 20:43:47 UTC
This might actually blow something up! If you look at the schematic, there is a DC voltage present at the hot of the footswitch (an open pull-down resistor)when the switch is open.
If you parallel the amps for the Distortion footswitch, your are cross connecting the actual transistor switches and low voltage power supplies indirectly and this could cause some problems and perhaps cause damage under some circumstances.
It is possible this would work, but you would have to make sure that both amps were being powered from the same grounded AC outlet and you would probably have to install an additional 500 ohm resitor in series with the footswitch LED to prevent burning out the LED as you would be feeding twice the current to it with two amps connected.
Doing the same thing for the Reverb opens up another can of worms...
With Reverb turned off, no problem. Both amps would have no Reverb audio. However, as soon as you turn Reverb ON, the amps would share an audio connection whcih would effectively make the resultant audio MONO (or worse, maybe even cancelling under the right set of circumstances).
To do this right but not modify anything, you would need a little external box with some relays in it that would act as "siamese twins" to the actual footswitch switch contacts OR modify the footswitch itself to use DPST switches and each half of the switch would drive its own amplifier.
The Double Pole switch idea would be the cheapest, but would result in a footswitch with multiple cables connected to it. The relay box would cost more, but the single cable standard footswitch would control the relay box (in the back of the amp) which controlled the amps in parallel.
Steve