Recently, a reader gave me an interesting note regarding a problem, which I would like to explain in detail here.
Pedals that run on battery do not work if you use the wrong cable.
Pedals without a batterie clip don’t mind whether you are using a mono or a TRS cable. But due to their construction, pedals that run on battery only like TS/ mono cables.
Here I would like to tell you the reason why.
TS and TRS cables
TRS cables are more commonly known as stereo cables (there is a difference between usual TRS and stereo cables – but this aspect, I would like to explain in another article).
TRS means Tip- Ring – Sleeve.
A cable that most people know as mono cable is a TS cable. It only has a Tip and a Sleeve.
The battery clip idiosyncrasy
The sleeve of a pedals’ battery clip is soldered to the ring of the pedals’ input jack.
By using a TS cables, the ring of the input jack will be connected to the sleeve and the pedal is switched on.
But if you use a TRS cable, the sleeve of the battery clip will be connected to the ring of the plug. In this case, the battery clip is not connected to the sleeve of the input jack via the sleeve of the plug and therefore there will be not power circuit. The pedal does not work.
If you use the TS cable the right way, the advantage of this design is, that your pedal will not empty the battery while it is not connected.
But the disadvantage is, that if you use a TRS cable, nothing works at all.
So, if your pedal does not work, just have a look at the cable you are using.
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