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If you have Line 6 Spider amplifier, and you don't have the foot pedal as an accessory, I bet you wish you did? This hack might be for you.
If you notice on the amplifier there is a 8 pin jack similar to what people in the network world call a RJ45 jack.
Well I looked all over on the Internet, and could not find an answer to my question. What is the schematic for the foot switch? So I started to investigate what each pin did. I assumed since Line 6 is mostly digital based, I'm dealing with high and lows. i.e. One's and zero's.
I got my digital multimeter and figured out the voltage on the various pins to ground.
Pin 1 Ground
Pin 2 + 5 VDC
Pin 3 + Ground
Pin 4 + 5 VDC
Pin 5 +.1 ? Not quite ground
Pin 6 + 5 VDC
Pin 7 + 5 VDC
Pin 8 + 5 VDC
Pin 5 seemed kind of odd to me, so I shorted it to pin 6. To my surprise the amplifier shuts all effects down. Including the LEDs, but low and behold I still get amplification, but no effects. Just plain amplification is all I would get. If I short to pin 6 to pin 5 again, it toggles back to the effect. Voila, I get some control with my own rigged up foot switch.
Pin 5 must be a trigger that's my only deductions. I tried other combinations like 7 and 1 it seems to reset the amp.
You may want to play with shorting to other pins, but pins 5 and 6 seem to be the most useful I noticed when the effect is really distorted with overdrive there is a slight pop sometimes when it kicks in, so you might find that shorting pin 7 and 1 might be more useful in this case, but you would have to install two switches.
Material needed:
RJ45 Jack I'm using a Levington Jack from Home Depot. The package comes with a punch down tool too.
Some 22 guage wire to punch down to a jack. Scrap from CAT5e cable will do.
A suface mount box to house jack. This is the Leviton box made for the jack that I purchased.
Patch network cord 8 pin plug on both sides. It has to be a straight through cable.
A normally open switch to provide the momentary short to toggle effect.
Solder to secure the wire to the switch.
Tools
Wire snips
Punch down tool like the one in the picture
Soldering Iron
Drill
3/8 bit to drill into the plastic box.
When punching down the wire on the jack I followed the T568B which is the standard that most people follow.
I picked solid green and White blue which are pins 5 and 6 of the jack.
You can probably buy all the parts for less than $10.00. You can splurge on LED's and a 330 ohm resisters to show connectivity since we are dealing with 5 volts at the end of the wire, but not necessary.
A simple hack!
Well there you have it! Let me know if you find something else, or improvement to this hack.
I know I'm probably doing something that LIne 6 probably would say not to do, but it's worked for me, and now I'm enjoying my amp more.
Cheers!
I could not get the video to work using the uploader, so I posted the video on you tube. The link is imbeded in the body of this instructible.
If you notice on the amplifier there is a 8 pin jack similar to what people in the network world call a RJ45 jack.
Well I looked all over on the Internet, and could not find an answer to my question. What is the schematic for the foot switch? So I started to investigate what each pin did. I assumed since Line 6 is mostly digital based, I'm dealing with high and lows. i.e. One's and zero's.
I got my digital multimeter and figured out the voltage on the various pins to ground.
Pin 1 Ground
Pin 2 + 5 VDC
Pin 3 + Ground
Pin 4 + 5 VDC
Pin 5 +.1 ? Not quite ground
Pin 6 + 5 VDC
Pin 7 + 5 VDC
Pin 8 + 5 VDC
Pin 5 seemed kind of odd to me, so I shorted it to pin 6. To my surprise the amplifier shuts all effects down. Including the LEDs, but low and behold I still get amplification, but no effects. Just plain amplification is all I would get. If I short to pin 6 to pin 5 again, it toggles back to the effect. Voila, I get some control with my own rigged up foot switch.
Pin 5 must be a trigger that's my only deductions. I tried other combinations like 7 and 1 it seems to reset the amp.
You may want to play with shorting to other pins, but pins 5 and 6 seem to be the most useful I noticed when the effect is really distorted with overdrive there is a slight pop sometimes when it kicks in, so you might find that shorting pin 7 and 1 might be more useful in this case, but you would have to install two switches.
Material needed:
RJ45 Jack I'm using a Levington Jack from Home Depot. The package comes with a punch down tool too.
Some 22 guage wire to punch down to a jack. Scrap from CAT5e cable will do.
A suface mount box to house jack. This is the Leviton box made for the jack that I purchased.
Patch network cord 8 pin plug on both sides. It has to be a straight through cable.
A normally open switch to provide the momentary short to toggle effect.
Solder to secure the wire to the switch.
Tools
Wire snips
Punch down tool like the one in the picture
Soldering Iron
Drill
3/8 bit to drill into the plastic box.
When punching down the wire on the jack I followed the T568B which is the standard that most people follow.
I picked solid green and White blue which are pins 5 and 6 of the jack.
You can probably buy all the parts for less than $10.00. You can splurge on LED's and a 330 ohm resisters to show connectivity since we are dealing with 5 volts at the end of the wire, but not necessary.
A simple hack!
Well there you have it! Let me know if you find something else, or improvement to this hack.
I know I'm probably doing something that LIne 6 probably would say not to do, but it's worked for me, and now I'm enjoying my amp more.
Cheers!
I could not get the video to work using the uploader, so I posted the video on you tube. The link is imbeded in the body of this instructible.
Summary: This is for Line 6 POD, which seems to match your pinout.
Pin
1 0v
2 Wah (input)
3 0v
4 Volume (input)
5 LED Drive (output)
6 Switch (input)
7 +5v
8 +5v
Pin 2 and Pin 4 are a variable voltage, derived from the 0v/5v and used to indicate the position of the Wah and Volume Pedals on the floorboard. They are opto-isolated in the real unit, but you might get away hanging a pot across 0v, 5v and using the wiper to drive pin 2 (or pin 4).
Pin 5 is an output from the Line 6, it is a logic level pulse train designed to drive LEDs (status leds, 7 segment displays). There is a series of pulses, up to 32, which drive ALL of the LEDS off one pin, through simple logic circuitry.
Pin 6 is an input, for ALL of the various switches (Tap Tempo, Channel/FX on off/Wah enable/A-B-C-D/Up/Down/Bank switch). There is a chain of different value resistors connected between Pin 6 and ground. As you press each individual switch, an internal resistor in the Line 6 product (to +5v) makes one half of a potential divider with the resistor in the floorboard (to 0v), and the product then works out what you are doing by reading the voltage.
Get a closer look at a real Pod Floorboard and see how much stuff is on there to be controlled by so few pins.
Full scoop at http://www.harmonicappliances.com/floorboard/floorboard.html which was an eyeopener for me!
I knew I would spark some responses to my hack. When I was trying to find info before, I just couldn't find anything regarding the line 6 pin out on the spider amp. Also I did not have access to to the floorboard.
I've gone to the web site that you suggested. There is more detail that I can work with. I will invest some more time and perhaps line 6 hack two will be my next instructable. Again thank you for your response.
regards