RM100 midi foot controller not responding.

[blasure82]

I've bought my RM100 over a year ago off of a friend and so far it's been an amazing amp. Recently, however, it's developed a problem. The foot-switch will light up but often not switch between channels and now recently it won't light up at all unless you jiggle the cable. I've bought a new midi cable thinking that would solve the issue but the same problem still persists.

I've determined that the issue has to be with the actual connect on the foot-switch it's self. With both the new and old cables plugged in it will not light up or do anything unless you jiggle the cable where it's connected to the foot-switch.

I called Randall who say they can't do anything for me other than sell me a new foot-switch. I was referred to a number of places that might sell the actual 7-pin midi connector part it's self because it would be a lot cheaper to replace a $2 part than a $100 foot-switch. I've tried mouser.com and Digikey with no luck.

Does anyone know where I can find this part?

I've also read the guide at the top of the page for the midi foot-switch. We have practice tonight so I'll try a few things from there to see if that might solve the issue but with the foot-switch not lighting up at times I don't know if that will solve the issue.

Thanks!

 

[Whoopysnorp]

I went through a big series of problems with an RF4 footswitch. It would sometimes work, but more often than not it would simply not turn on. In those situations, sometimes it would eventually start working, or it would do this weird thing where all four LEDs lit up and stayed lit. At first I thought I had traced the problem to a cold solder joint, because it worked pretty well for a while after I fixed that, and then it started doing it again. I think more solder joints went cold, but it was tricky to identify them.

There is a fuse soldered to the footswitch PCB...I can't remember the location or designation, but it's a little oval-shaped silver thing. Eventually, I became pretty convinced that one of the solder joints on the fuse was cold. I re-soldered it without having any lasting effect, but then I decided to swap the fuses between my RF3 and RF4 footswitches. Both footswitches worked fine after that, and the RF4 has stayed working. I think probably the joint was still bad on the RF4's fuse after my first attempted fix, and swapping the fuses was incidental.

Anyway, what I am trying to say with all this is that you should check for cold solder joints. I would be more liable to believe that's the issue than the MIDI cable connector. Probably what's happening when you wiggle the cables is that it's modulating the amount of current going through the path just enough to get past the solder joint.

 

[blasure82]

Thanks for the response. If that's the case then I could get this up and running tonight. I'll have to wait until my co-guitarist gets back as my amp is at his place where we practice.

What type of fuse does it use?

 

[Whoopysnorp]

See this thread for specifics on the fuse: http://mtsforum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?t=14825&highlight=footswitch+fuse

The fuse itself might be just fine, but if the solder joints are bad, the thing won't work properly.