A Road Rage Tinkered Up "More Safely"

[Zander]

Hello there,

Here's my idea for wiring up a Road Rage.  My idea is to wire up to a 2-pole 6-position rotary in combination with a 3PDT (on-off-on) toggle that will both prevent incorrect electrical polarity, and indicate which polarity can be selected by the rotary.

Obviously, this isn't to be "more safe" for a human, but for the pedals I'm wiring up.  The idea is to wire up the Road Rage in such a way that will force me to be more careful when wiring pedals. Rather than just relying on a single rotary switch to select voltages, the associated toggle would separate + voltage from - voltage (and indicate such), thereby preventing me (or anyone else using it) from casually sending +18 into a circuit designed for -9.  The idea is that circuit would not work if the rotary were selected to "+18", but the toggle was on "- voltage" and vice versa.

The attached diagram is my first conceptual attempt of how this would work.

Also please assume that the individually drawn Red/Green LEDs are actually a single R/G LED.  The red dotted line through the rotary is the axis that splits the poles and their corresponding throws or positions.

The left side shows the labelled rotary and toggle as they would be seen working together from the outside of the box.

The reason I'm not using the DC Out ground lug on the Road Rage is because I plan on combining this with a JMKPCBs Testing Rig that would be wired to those lugs


Sanity check: Is my idea here overly complicated and unnecessary?


Thanks!

[jimilee]

I like the idea, but the inherent flaw is still you, or the operator. You still have to remember to turn the rotary before you plug in the pedal and not after. 

[madbean]

I had this more or less built into a previous testing rig (rotary switch selecting different voltage outputs). It is quite handy.

[Zander]

You still have to remember to turn the rotary before you plug in the pedal and not after. 

True.  The additional toggle switch and indicator is supposed to be that extra reminder.

Thanks!

[Zander]

I had this more or less built into a previous testing rig (rotary switch selecting different voltage outputs). It is quite handy.

I appreciate the vote of confidence.  I was originally going to use the 5-outputs in the Road Rage documentation. After seeing other testing rigs and mulling over your rotary diagram in the Road Rage documentation, I was inspired to take it to the next level (and not have so many power outputs!)

Thanks!

[Zander]

I reworked the diagram a bit - hopefully this makes things clearer.

I noticed from the Madbean Footswitch Wiring Guide a principle that I hadn't encountered before.  That principle appears to be "Drain everything you can; when suitable, wire spare lugs to ground".  I'm intuiting this from the wiring guide as spelled out, "in the case of a switch failure" on page 8.

So I'm thinking that this should be done for the rotary 2P6T, because anything electrically significant is connected through it.  As I look at the diagram, it wouldn't take all that much, and wouldn't appear to create clutter, to solder a jumper through the 7 contiguous lugs and then also wire that to ground.

Am I missing anything?  Thanks in advance.



EDIT: Something else I noticed.  If I were to ground the lugs of the 2P6T as described, then I also need to flip how the lugs are attached to the power for -9v and the "out" to the power jack.  If I don't then the -9v creates an invisible loop and runs from the board, through the switch, through the ground and then out.  Power would get used without any benefit obtained.

Actually, now that I've added the additional dotted line, representing "off", power would be going through the -9v while simultaneously also going through any of the +voltages.

Brian, I am guessing that having +18 and -9 engaged simultaneously might well exceed the capacity of the components on the board?

Thanks again

[cspar]

It depends on the charge pump that you installed as well as the current draw when you're using multiple voltages at the same time.

You can run a Klone on a Road Rage.

I personally have my testing unit set up with each voltage going to it's own banana plug jack which makes it easy to know what is what and I can use multiple taps at the same time.

I've thought about putting the unfiltered +9v tap on a rotary that goes to a selection of regulators, like 1.2v, 4.5v, 5v, 7.2v, 8.2v or to a sag pot but haven't done it.

Maybe one day I'll get it together and have a unit with that going on as well as a signal generator, lfo and headphone amp but I keep making effects instead of utilities...

[cooder]

If you would want to go extra luxury obvious to display voltage you could add a wee meter like this on there to show the selected voltage.
Might be slightly overkill, but more fancy than a LED.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/263546957199?hash=item3d5c9f6d8f:g:YbQAAOSwZZ5ap00J

[gordo]

I just like switches and lights and meters so you have my vote :-)

[Zander]

If you would want to go extra luxury obvious to display voltage you could add a wee meter like this on there to show the selected voltage.
Might be slightly overkill, but more fancy than a LED.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/263546957199?hash=item3d5c9f6d8f:g:YbQAAOSwZZ5ap00J

Wow!  I didn't think that would be available at such a good price!  I think I'll be doing that!

Thanks for the link!

[Zander]

It depends on the charge pump that you installed as well as the current draw when you're using multiple voltages at the same time.

You can run a Klone on a Road Rage.

I personally have my testing unit set up with each voltage going to it's own banana plug jack which makes it easy to know what is what and I can use multiple taps at the same time.

I've thought about putting the unfiltered +9v tap on a rotary that goes to a selection of regulators, like 1.2v, 4.5v, 5v, 7.2v, 8.2v or to a sag pot but haven't done it.

Maybe one day I'll get it together and have a unit with that going on as well as a signal generator, lfo and headphone amp but I keep making effects instead of utilities...

I've got a few LT1054s for the full 18 volts @ 100mA.

I'm planning on making videos for my pedal builds so I figure I'd be better served if I make the utilities first.  On top of the Testing Rig mentioned in the initial post, I have another JMKPCBs Tiny Tester (signal generator) that I'm going to wire up with a second Road Rage into a 1590G in order to inject signal with a probe as well as pick up signal with the other probe on the Testing Rig.  I did read on the 5-outputs Road Rage in the Madbean instructions and figured (of course) I'd have to make that too!

The point of the rotary is to make sure that only one voltage at a time is available.  On the 1590G Road Rage I do intend to have the 5 separate outputs and for it to have a 12v regulated output.  The meter (I just bought!) combined with a sag control as you mention would be pretty cool too.

Mostly the setup described above is to minimize the possibility of sending +Volts instead of -Volts when testing and vice versa.

I guess my biggest problem now is knowing whether that meter (just bought it on eBay) will show -volts as well as +volts (and not burn up!).