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Post subject: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:16 pm
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Until recently the foot switch (which is 6 months old) worked flawlessly with the Mustang GT-100 amp. In the last few days, it freezes and the symbols "u -3" are displayed in the window. Sometimes it returns to operational status. Everything else seems to be in order. Firmware is up-to-date. The amp and Fender Tone app function without any problems. Does anybody else have this problem? Does anybody have any ideas about the cause?


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 10:59 pm
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I believe it is a connector issue, as is IMO the cutting out issue many like myself also had. Theres a seperate small footswitch circuit board in the amp with i believe a 18 pin connector that plugs into the DSP board. No cable, the pins are just soldered to one board and the other has a female connector that the other board's pins plug right into when the board is set into position. I soldered small pieces of wire from the ends of the pins to the solder pads on the other board. A very tedious and time consuming operation that i wouldn't recommend anyone do unless they are very experienced at soldering and have a magnifier to see what they are doing. In any case, that was months ago and mine no longer freezes up. Those connectors are extremely unreliable.

There is a second one like it in the amp that connects the small send/return/DI board to the DSP board and i later after i sensed the footswitch issue had been rectified with the mod, i decided this second one is likely the cause of the cutting out issue. So i recently did that one too. The cutting out issue is far lass frequent so it will be a long time b4 i can be sure that fixed it. But my footswitch issue which is the same one u have was a regular thing that happened almost daily. It's been months and it hasn't happened since.

So that's what i think it is, and as flimsy as those connectors are it makes total sense. Bad news for most really because like i said, the mod i did is not easy. I've been at soldering and electronics repair for many years so it;s second nature to me, but still it wasn't easy due to the logistics of it and the small size of the pins and solder pads. So unless fender does some hardware upgrades to the GT line i'd be hard pressed to recommend the amp to anyone. On the bright side when those connectors ARE out of the picture as far as reliability risk, the amp works right and even sounds better then ever. In fact i never really got a live sound from it i was real happy with. But a week after I did the mod we did a 4th party and not only did it sound like a completely different amp, but another player that was there raved about ow it sounded, plus i myself was blown away by how good it sounded. Maybe it was a fluke but next saturday i get a chance to hear it in a live mix again and if it sounds like it did on the 4th i'll then be sure it was that connector. If that turns out to be the case i would say fender has a potential #1 modeling combo on thier hands if they fi the hardware issues !


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:00 pm
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Ozcad, there are a lot of tedious jobs to keep music gear running. Its our equivalent of musician woodshedding. But for an hour or two of repair work we get hundreds of hours of enjoyment. The time is a good investment.
But to make this repair easier,
Do you think this would work? Instead of replacing the pins, solder them together.
Grind or cut away the plastic from the connector pins until the metal is exposed a bit.
Then put the connector together
Heat the pin from the backside.
Feed fine solder into the gap you created to solder the pins together.

The other possibility is to coat the pins with solder paste, reassemble it and heat each pin from the backside to bond it.


Can you access both sides of the connector?


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:27 pm
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I did think about that but there are reasons i didn't. This was just a easier solution that gave each connection 2 pathways in case one goes bad. Plus it would be pretty much impossible to get to the pins with a iron once the boards are in place, and i couldn't really solder out of the chassis and then replace the boards because each is screwed to the chassis and if i soldered them then put the boards back i'd likely have to bend them to fit the chassis possibly breaking the solder connections or bending them into each other causing shorts, etc etc etc. Just not really feasible, but that was what i first wanted to do. In other words, as tedious as this was it was easy compared to how that would have been.

But you're quite right. As tedious and time consuming as it was it's well worth it considering i could be playing this amp for years, or even the rest of my life given my age.(think jurassic period) :mrgreen: But i only mentioned how hard a job it is because many if not most owners are likely not up to it and i thought they should know. Those who are might try it.


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 3:52 am
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TimsAudio wrote:
Ozcad, there are a lot of tedious jobs to keep music gear running. Its our equivalent of musician woodshedding. But for an hour or two of repair work we get hundreds of hours of enjoyment. The time is a good investment.

How this solder mod improves the sound?
But to make this repair easier,
Do you think this would work? Instead of replacing the pins, solder them together.
Grind or cut away the plastic from the connector pins until the metal is exposed a bit.
Then put the connector together
Heat the pin from the backside.
Feed fine solder into the gap you created to solder the pins together.

The other possibility is to coat the pins with solder paste, reassemble it and heat each pin from the backside to bond it.


Can you access both sides of the connector?


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 10:20 am
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The amp could easily sound better after resoldering.
Connector failures don't necessarily open to infinity ohms.
Its just as likely to go to some high resistance that only conducts after a certain voltage level can make the connection. This causes clipping of low level audio signals.
Since this connector also carries digital signals, a degradation of the connector will cause the signal processing ICs to miss their cues and distort the data. Its unlikely that there is any error correction coding in the data stream so it can't recover lost data. No data means no output for that millisecond.

Its every engineers goal to make a perfect design with no failures. Then they go up against the accountants who prefer technical failures rather than financial failures. Its a balancing act to build it as cheap as possible and still have it hang together.
But when you build ten thousand units, you find out pretty quickly where your design weaknesses are. Its a sinking feeling for an engineer to realize there is a systemic failure in any design. But what can you do about it now?
You can put out a service bulletin, but that won't help all the units that are just canned or retired to a bedroom closet.
The only positive is to resolve not to make the same mistakes again.

Which brings me to the new Tonemaster amps. After watching the NAMM presentation on YT, I hope they get it right with these new models. The Deluxe Reverb and Twin digital versions don't have a bunch of bells and whistles that the Mustangs have. Its a departure to have a digital unit without a lot of features. It'll be interesting to see how they work out.


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 11:37 am
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Exactly, and thats why i did it. Any time a connector starts adding resistance it;s going to change things one way or another depending on what the compromised pin is carrying, power, digital data or analog signal, etc etc. So the symptoms have endless possibilities. I mainly did the second one that was the send/return board for a issue with volume cutting out but i also wondered about degradation of tone when it wasn't audibly cutting volume. That party was telling IMO because like i said, till that party which was after i did this, the amp never sounded close to this good. That other player was blown away at the tone, and he was no slouch as players go and he didn't let up on the tone compliments all nite. First one was after he tried my rig, and the last one was as I was leaving at about 2 am and he was still raving about it ! When i gigged regularly i used a lot of great tube amps like early JCM800s and i swear that nite they had nothing on the tones i was getting. That fix was the only explanation because i have played some of the best and worse sounding rooms imaginable with the same amps and i never heard the difference i did between my GT pre fix and post fix. And to be clear, it's at stage volume where the big difference is. At home low volume i think it may sound a bit better but pretty much the same as always. That makes me think it was an analog signal that was the issue pre fix. You'd know better tho because i know nothing about digital data and the issue it may present when compromised.

TimsAudio wrote:
The amp could easily sound better after resoldering.
Connector failures don't necessarily open to infinity ohms.
Its just as likely to go to some high resistance that only conducts after a certain voltage level can make the connection. This causes clipping of low level audio signals.
Since this connector also carries digital signals, a degradation of the connector will cause the signal processing ICs to miss their cues and distort the data. Its unlikely that there is any error correction coding in the data stream so it can't recover lost data. No data means no output for that millisecond.

Its every engineers goal to make a perfect design with no failures. Then they go up against the accountants who prefer technical failures rather than financial failures. Its a balancing act to build it as cheap as possible and still have it hang together.
But when you build ten thousand units, you find out pretty quickly where your design weaknesses are. Its a sinking feeling for an engineer to realize there is a systemic failure in any design. But what can you do about it now?
You can put out a service bulletin, but that won't help all the units that are just canned or retired to a bedroom closet.
The only positive is to resolve not to make the same mistakes again.

Which brings me to the new Tonemaster amps. After watching the NAMM presentation on YT, I hope they get it right with these new models. The Deluxe Reverb and Twin digital versions don't have a bunch of bells and whistles that the Mustangs have. Its a departure to have a digital unit without a lot of features. It'll be interesting to see how they work out.


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:54 am
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Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:57 am
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I am having this problem, is this not covered under warranty then?


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Post subject: Re: Fender MGT-4 foot switch
Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:58 am
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Indy62 wrote:
I am having this problem, is this not covered under warranty then?


Of course it is ! As long as your amp is within the warranty period they will replace it. Personally i don't think you are likely to get a new one that doesn't do this. I believe they all are susceptible to it because it's a flaw in the amp that's not yet been rectified as proven by the fact new owners just recently are saying they have the issue. I think it may be an issue fender simply cannot figure out. But i say go for it. It seems some of them do it a lot more then others so u may get a new one that hopefully won't do it at all but at the least u can hope for one like mine that does it only occasionally, maybe a few times a month. And if the new one does it as much or more get that one warrantied too. If people do not bother getting theirs replaced fender will never have incentive to find and fix the issue.


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