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harpies wrote:I put one on a keeley pedal, and I think the shaft of the footswitch is just a bit shorter than most bc when the barefoot button is on, I sometimes can’t get the switch to switch off and on, but with the barefoot button off, I have no problem. I thought it was the pedal since I had just purchased it used, but it’s the button and not the switch.

I think Keeley use their own in-house footswitches...

D-Rainger wrote:

harpies wrote:I put one on a keeley pedal, and I think the shaft of the footswitch is just a bit shorter than most bc when the barefoot button is on, I sometimes can’t get the switch to switch off and on, but with the barefoot button off, I have no problem. I thought it was the pedal since I had just purchased it used, but it’s the button and not the switch.

I think Keeley use their own in-house footswitches...

I believe you're correct.

Brett at Barefoot probably could sell you a skirtless one and that would work.

I was using buttons direct from barefoot and the footswitch on my Mini went out last month. Now my Unpleasant Surprise is being weird and they're the only 2 pedals I have the buttons on at the moment.

I had some on my El Cap too but I was feeling a weird scraping when I would stomp sometimes so I took it off. I'm just gonna take them off the rest and see if it still has problems.

I literally have them on every pedal I use and I've never had any issues with the stomps. LOL.

The stomps that are used the most by 90% of the builders out there are cheap and shitty. It's what's available. haha.

Seriously though. Regular 3dtp stomps that are hard click do not last that long. I've replaced so fucking many of them it's not even funny. That's not taking any extra grams of weight into the equation. Just being cheaply produced Chinese bullshit.

Jwar wrote:I literally have them on every pedal I use and I've never had any issues with the stomps. LOL.

The stomps that are used the most by 90% of the builders out there are cheap and shitty. It's what's available. haha.

Seriously though. Regular 3dtp stomps that are hard click do not last that long. I've replaced so fucking many of them it's not even funny. That's not taking any extra grams of weight into the equation. Just being cheaply produced Chinese bullshit.

I've been considering changing over to Duponts for my builds but dang they're costly. Probably better off just going for relay at this point.

if you hit one side of the mushroom cap and not dead center aren't you torquing the shaft of the pedal switch and making it into a butter churn? I have the same feeling about straplocks that extend far out from the instrument.. sooner or later, someone's going to lean your guitar on an amp and the strap button screw starts stirring the inside of the wooden body around..

I’m sure that if your aim is always off, you probably could create an issue but good made stomps are pretty damn resistant and take very little pressure to engage.

I think relay bypass is for sure the way to go imo. Or Lehle stomps. Hahaha.

Chankgeez wrote:
Can you rig up a bypass loop for the fuzz for your show?

But then he would have to put barefoot buttons on the bypass loop switches and then THOSE switches would start fucking up, so then he would have to get ANOTHER bypass loop for that bypass loop, which would also need barefoot buttons (y'know, for uniformity) and then THOSE...

hahahahaha


I'm emailing Brett. This is too odd to ignore.

I'm honestly more worried that my aim is just a little off. I'm singing, playing, and stomping at the same time sometimes, and half the time I'm stomping and praying I hit the target.

I'm thinking of just using the BF buttons for back row stuff that doesn't get stomped that much.

PS Jwar go listen to my EP

Here's my nerd lingo email. I left a part out that doesn't have anything to do with ILF. lol


"I wanted to ask you something unrelated however. Recently on ILF someone was saying that they believe a Barefoot Button was causing damage to their stomp switches, which then several others chimed in with similar issues. Failing switches. Now, my initial thought is "right, I don't buy that". However, I thought about this at a lot of length. The added weight over a certain length of time could cause the switches to be under a certain amount of pressure but it is only grams at most in weight. However, that coupled with the downward motion of people probably not hitting the switch dead on, could cause connectivity issues in the shaft of the stomps.

Now, I was thinking of this in terms of a fulcrum. IE where is the weight being most distributed (load force). It would occur to me that the majority of the weight is on the outside of the stomp (that obviously makes sense since they are bored out). So gradual wear down would appear over time (depending on the quality of the switches it could be a decade, but in some cases far less) just like it would if you left weight on a barbell. Overtime, the weight would cause a shift so to speak. The shifting can be apparent as well by the way you stomp. I've yet to have any failed switches (I know how to replace them anyway, so I don't care) but I have had buttons come loose, which indicates to me that I'm hitting them in a place that has weight to it.

I do think these are extremely well balanced, but I wonder. Could adding some additional weight to just the center of the button perhaps offset this issue? It would cause pressure to the stomp but it would be an even and more consistent pressure.

I'm sure you've done all kinds of testing and I'm way over thinking things. hahaha. I can't help it.

Anyway, if you want to stop by ILF and chat, I'm sure those guys would dig it.

Hope all is well at the newer shop!!!

Thanks!!"


That sound about right to you guys?


Also, going to listen to EP now!

I don't think "added weight" is a factor at all. If something wrong is happening, IMO it's probably that the wider target on top may invite more lateral pressure when it's being stomped. If the point is to get the switch to go straight up & down, then maybe it makes sense that the stomp area under pressure is directly above that "up & down" mechanism, and not extending out, extending the area where force can be applied in the wrong direction. I just made that up though. A mechanical engineer would probably know. (I just made that up too).

It could all be coincidental too.

i think the fulcrum issue might not only be caused by stomping, but also by damage in transport. having the button on there gives a bigger target for the switch to get bent or 'pried' in some way.

So Brett did reply! Hope he doesn't mind me sharing. Sounds like I was incorrect and that these could be a calculated risk you have to take if you want to use them.




"There's absolutely no denying that using stomp buttons has to put more torque on the switch. I think the weight is actually negligible though. I believe it's the side torque created when stomping on the outer edge of the buttons. If the buttons had a larger diameter, the side torque would be increased. I haven't received any feedback from customers having this problem but I'm sure it might happen. As I said, there's no denying that the buttons have to put more torque on a switch but I haven't had any emails about this issue."


So, here's my question about this issue and it seems like there would be a good way to fix this. Why couldn't someone create nuts for the stomps that are angled. Thicker nut at an angle so that when you stomp it's not hit incorrectly. That just makes sense to me. It would be stupid fucking easy to make nuts like that. I don't have the capability but it would make far more sense to ankle stomp switches towards the user slightly so they can stomp it quickly and efficiently.

What about the length of the stomp shaft?? It probably wouldn't matter. Some of those suckers are WAYYY too long to begin with.



It's kind of funny that with all the technology out there now that no one has bothered perfecting the single most important part of any guitar pedal. It's stomp switch. Without it, the magic is lost inside the box. So, why the hell don't one of these huge companies take it upon themselves to dig into what users actually need from it, develop it and sell the manufacturing rights. God I wish I knew how to design shit like this. Cost is obviously an issue for builders but there are ways to work that.

I've seen failures in all manner of switches (without the use of barefoot buttons), and I'm in the habit of trying to find out the reason for failures; so let's take a peek at what's going on with inexpensive footswitches, shall we?



I believe the addition of a large button on the actuating end of a footswitch is only going to introduce a side shifting (radial play) load to the outermost "piston" that takes the stomp.



Here we sight up that "piston" and can see that any side loading is going to be contained by the threaded neck of the switch. Over the course of years this might produce some wear, but I doubt it would affect the function of the switch, and here is why:



The actuator rod that rides within the piston is already designed with radial play in mind. As we can see in this picture, the only real connection surface between the actuator rod and the "piston" is at the very top where the foot or button is applied, the spring depicted in the following picture maintains this connection while allowing gobs of radial play.



The "piston" skirt could wobble all over, and would affect the actuator rod very little, because its business end is captive in the rocker assembly.



Pictured above is a loose interpretation of the footswitch being pressed in. During this cycle, the actuator rod started in the uppermost "pocket" of the rocker assembly and is pushed down changing the orientation of the rocker which presses on the poles of the switch like loading a single side of a see-saw.



Your foot is removed and the spring pushes the piston and actuator rod straight "out" back up away from the rocker assembly, which pushes the tip past a little hump on the rocker assembly that situates it into the current uppermost pocket.



In order to do this, the actuator arm has to swing back and forth a bit which means it needs to not be sensitive about any wiggle in the outermost piston. Therefore it does not seem logical to me that any top loading of a footswitch is going to affect its function.

So, what DOES fail?

I've seen poles shift like this:



Which seems to be the result of loose tolerances, and sometimes aggravated by a bad union between the metal top and plastic sub-assembly.



I've seen the rockers split on toggles (it's the most common failure mode I've seen) but the footswitch units are more robust and have built in travel limiting, so beyond something like what I've pictured here that part seems pretty fool-proof. Those are manufacturer defects, most common of all is installer error, namely overheated pins that then float and fuck up the see-saw action.