I want to build a new footswich for a Trace Elliot Bonneville that belongs to guy i know, i just don´t know if i will use momentary or on/off switchs. The original ones tech. info. says that they are latching switches ...
Well, i've been there. Some years ago i designed a new control circuit for this amp. Unfortunaltely, you can't just replace the original rotary switch with 3 footswitches because when one of the three sections is on, the rest should be off. So, when you'd use a 3 latching footswitches, the user would have to at first turn the actual channel off, then select another one by pressing another footswich. This is very unconfortable
One possible way of solving this is to design an active footswitch with momentary footswitches and a piece of electronics to make the amp see them as original 3 way rotary switch.
There's also one more annoying thing in this amp: about 0,5sec of silence when you change the channels. It's done to cut out the spikes generated by all the relays. With a proper switching sequence this time can be lowered to 40-50ms, still with a clickless operation.
The secondary winding on the power transformer delivering the power for the +5V for digital won't source much more current, it will sag and the relays won't turn on. So the additional circuit should be low power. I had to add an additional 5V power supply for my control module.
Hope it will be helpfull. It's a great sounding amp.
