Ernie Ball VP Jr

Donnie St. James said:
Ok, so I bought that Honeywell taper, installed it per the instructions, got the pedal put back together and plugged it in to calibrate. The min level is .02 and the max is .91. It won't budge off of those numbers. Is there something I did wrong? Do I need to adjust the pot?
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My pedal board is packed away at the moment, so cant check properly. Did you make sure when re-installing the string around the taper pot that the pot is in the absolute "start position" as your pedal is fully heal down?
 
Did you calibrate it? I only own the MFC, but I'm pretty sure the AX has the same calibration features.
 
I was watching the video of the guy putting the string on as I was doing it. He states in the video to make sure the pot is turned all the way counter clockwise as you are doing it, so that's what I did. Not sure if it slipped at all as I was doing it, but I went back and did my best to make sure it was after I had the string on.

I calibrated it with the FX8 which is how I could see that it was going from .02 to .91. Is there another way to calibrate it that I may have missed?

Appreciate the replies.
 
Hm, ok, on the MFC the calibration intervall goes from 000 to 127 (iirc), with my pedal I go from 000 to about 114 or so. Could be just a unit conversion, so with the MFC you might get 002 to 091. But I'm not sure. Still, I think this seems ok. Of course, the closer you get to 000 and 127, the smoother the result.

I'd say: Try it out. If it works ok for you, you're fine :)
 
This thread reminded me I've got two scratchy VPJR's I bought for next to nothing off Ebay "as is" with the intention of modding them. I've got the EV-1 as well, and its pretty fantastic, but pretty large.

I'm planning on taking the pedals apart, painting them black, and then putting the new pots in, with a stereo jack. Will be fantastic to have that degree of fine foot control in a smaller pedal.

I've got some Missions as well, which I love for wah, but the sweep is way, way to little for control of things like a delay mix
 
Ok, so I'm getting a little frustrated with this. Calibrating the pedal with the new Mouser taper in it I'm getting .02-.91 regardless of what I do. When playing with any effect that I'm controlling with it (wah, whammy) and I have the pedal in heel down and slowly press on it, it goes from about 0% to 75% when I'm pressing down about 1/4 of the way if that makes any sense. This leaves about more than half of the travel of the pedal to toe down that gives no affect whatsoever. It does this when I calibrate it as well.

I have a stock VP Jr and when I use that it calibrates from .00-.98 and does not do what I just mentioned. Is there something wrong with the taper I bought? I'm almost to the point of just putting the stock pot back in it and chalk it up to an $18 learning experience.

Can anyone offer up some advice on something else to check? I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
 
I can't answer your question about the taper in the pot you bought, but I'm just using a stock 25k VPjr and I adjust the slope on each modifier to compensate for the nonlinear taper. I haven't tried it for volume but for delay/reverb amount, it's perfect.
 
So I took it apart and tried calibrating it without the actual pedal, and it only goes from .02-.91. And it does that thing at the beginning of the turn where the actual turn of the pot is minimal but the calibration shows about 40% travel. I'm putting the stock one back in and trying that one. Grrrr. Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate the help. (and that's not being sarcastic)
 
Donnie St. James said:
So I took it apart and tried calibrating it without the actual pedal, and it only goes from .02-.91. And it does that thing at the beginning of the turn where the actual turn of the pot is minimal but the calibration shows about 40% travel. I'm putting the stock one back in and trying that one. Grrrr. Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate the help. (and that's not being sarcastic)
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It seems that you have bought a log pot ( non linear), you need a linear pot...
 
Do you have a multimeter to measure the resistance of the poti depending on the travel? Might be a good way to confirm, that it's actually linear. Because according to your describtion it really seems to be logarithmic!
 
Reverse your Ring and Tip wires. I wired mine up from left to right, looking at the back of the pot S, R, T, and then connected those to the correct spots on a TRS jack, only to have no effect for about 75% of the pot range. Another one I built earlier worked just fine, so I opened it back up, and sure enough, reversed the T and R wires when I soldered the TRS jack.

Swapped those leads and now it works in a proper linear fashion (though I do only get about 0-116) which given I use a MFC, isn't an issue as I can calibrate each pedal.

Painted my pedal housings black as well, looks pretty good, at least for just using spray paint.

I can now list my EV-1's for sale, freeing up some board space, couping some cash, and still having a great pedal feel
 
I really appreciate all the help on this. I tested with my multimeter...it's linear alright. Goes from 0 to 10 and back. I tried reversing them also. No dice, Chicago. I did swap out the stereo jack and now it goes down to 0, but still up only to 91. The stock 250k pot that came with the VP Jr. goes from 0 to 98, but it isn't the smoothest...and I'm not sure how to explain it. From 0 to about 25 it has little to no effect.

I will say that I'm getting pretty good at putting these VP pedals back together with a paper clip.

Thanks again.
 
Donnie St. James said:
I will say that I'm getting pretty good at putting these VP pedals back together with a paper clip.
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Paper clip? Sounds like a good idea! I had to put mine back together a few times aswell, which made me improve the process aswell. In the end I didn't need any tools, except of course a screw driver for the screws ;)

Ok, there's one thing I don't understand. Maybe it's a language barrier, since I'm german. So I'm thinking, that asking is for free, so I'm asking:
Donnie St. James said:
From 0 to about 25 it has little to no effect.
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This sentence makes me wonder... You start at heel position, which is equal to the value 0, right? Then you move your pedal, which makes the value go up. So in which position do you get the value 25?

What I don't understand is: The value going up from 0 to 25 IS THE EFFECT, or isn't it? So you saying it has LITTLE effect is what I don't understand.
 
axifist said:
Paper clip? Sounds like a good idea! I had to put mine back together a few times aswell, which made me improve the process aswell. In the end I didn't need any tools, except of course a screw driver for the screws ;)

Ok, there's one thing I don't understand. Maybe it's a language barrier, since I'm german. So I'm thinking, that asking is for free, so I'm asking:

This sentence makes me wonder... You start at heel position, which is equal to the value 0, right? Then you move your pedal, which makes the value go up. So in which position do you get the value 25?

What I don't understand is: The value going up from 0 to 25 IS THE EFFECT, or isn't it? So you saying it has LITTLE effect is what I don't understand.
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Yes, I start in heel down which would be 0. As I am slowly pressing on the pedal, going from 0 to about 25% toe down does nothing as far as effects goes. It's as if I wasn't stepping on it at all. It's not until I get the pedal about 25% pressed does the pedal actually begin making a change in the effect I'm controlling it with. I hope that cleared it up. I'm not the best when it comes to explaining stuff.
 
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