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HOW TO ADD A DC JACK TO AN
EFFECTS PEDAL AND DROP THE 9V!

In this article I show you how to Add A DC Jack To An Effects Pedal to easily convert that old guitar pedal you have, to be able to use a Boss style DC jack, and power it without batteries.

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I found this old guitar pedal I thought it’d be cool to hook it up. But then I saw it had this old 3.5mm Jack power input and I got in trouble last time I took the 9 V battery out of a smoke alarm, so I thought there must be a way to adapt this to use a standard 2.1mm supply. After figuring it out I realised there must be lots of other people who want to do the same thing, so I made a video about how to Add A DC Jack To An Effects Pedal.

TWO OR THREE PRONG DC JACK?

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I had a look online I found this two pronged socket. If I wanted the option to keep using a battery I would need a switching three prong version, like in this pedal, where the battery gets disconnected when something is plugged into the jack socket, but who wants to keep changing batteries? So for me a two prong was completely fine. You also want to make sure it doesn’t have metal touching the case or you could short your guitar pedal’s power and it won’t work.

DISASSEMBLE THE GUITAR PEDAL

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Note where the wires are attached and unsolder the old connector before taking it out. Then drill the pedal case to fit the new switch, I needed an 8mm hss drill bit.

AC OR DC WIRING?

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Solder the new socket. Normally the positive goes to the tip while the negative is where the black or blue lead from the battery was connected, however with a guitar pedal marked AC you need to invert this.

PUTTING THE PEDAL BACK TOGETHER

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Connect a piece of wire as the negative from the socket to the ring of the input jack socket.

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Now you know how to Add A DC Jack To An Effects Pedal! Put the guitar pedal back together and you’re good to go.

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