Jumping headphone jack on Soundcraft Ghost

user 40373 · Feb 2, 2010

I recapped the center section of our console and the center section was getting signal, but I wasn't getting output from the control room monitor or alt output jacks. Now, I get output and signal in the right side of the console and the outputs, but nothing to the left side (signal or output). What the heck happened?

I think is has something to do with the headphone jack. In an old post, a member said:

"When listening via the control room outputs the other day, the right side went down, followed shortly by the alternative control room output too! (We use these to switch between our two main sets of monitors). Frustrating whilst we had clients in, so had to use one of the group pairs to monitor from!"

Two people said his problem is likely be the headphone jack, it's a common problem. Someone mentioned jumping the normals, I'm not sure how that's done.

Here's a link to the schematics, everything for the center section is on page 11 and 12. I'd love to know how to jumper the phone jack, we don't use it.

gschem.pdf

JohnRoberts · Feb 2, 2010

If the headphone jack has switches build in to interrupt the audio when plugged, they may be dirty or oxidized. You may be able to fix it by just exercising the jack by plugging in a few times, or using some cleaner.

To hardwire bypass, may be as easy as connecting the correct jack terminals.

JR

abbey road d enfer · Feb 2, 2010

sws2h said:
I'd love to know how to jumper the phone jack, we don't use it.

Two people said his problem is likely be the headphone jack, it's a common problem. Someone mentioned jumping the normals, I'm not sure how that's done.

The jacks are a variation of the Neutrik NJ5FDV. You need to connect T with TN and R with RN. The headphone jack will still be functional but won't cut the monitors when a plug is plugged in.
As JR mentioned, in an emergency situation, multiple insertions and contact cleaner may do temporarily, but these jacks are known to have this kind of problem and need replacing.

pucho812 · Feb 2, 2010

We have had similar issues with the ghost before, it's very easy to short out one side of the stereo buss just from opening and closing the mixer as things are fairly tight inside. There really is no real room to move. Make sure your not shorting out that side to the chassis.

drayon · May 10, 2013

pucho812 said:
We have had similar issues with the ghost before, it's very easy to short out one side of the stereo buss just from opening and closing the mixer as things are fairly tight inside. There really is no real room to move. Make sure your not shorting out that side to the chassis.

Hi pucho812, can you explain exactly what to look for and what to do to prevent this shorting? Is there a particular wire or section of a PCB that is touching the chassis that shouldn't? I have a brand new Ghost, I opened it up to change the jumpers on each channel for metering and of course opening the Ghost requires removing the headphone PCB, I'll have to open it again if this is the case but I don't know what i'll be looking for. I have no left channel out the control room out, mix outs or the alt outs. When I plug headphones into the headphone jack, it correctly disables the control room monitors, but there is only the right channel in the headphones, the same as when the jack is removed, only right int he monitors. If I insert a TRS jack part way into the headphone socket, the left channel comes back to the monitors. Maybe this short is what is going on since my Ghost is new.

pucho812 · May 10, 2013

yes. It's been a while since I had to open a ghost around here as lately all the faults have been leds going out so I have been pulling apart the meter bridge more often these days. For a while it was regular opening them up and replacing failing cr monitor pots. They would go scratchy and although you would deox them they would be back to scratchy quickly so was told to replace them. Anyway, as you know the ghost has that big bottom chassis plate. When putting stuff back together, putting the bottom plate on, it's easy to pinch ribbon cables causing a side to drop out or in some cases I have had ribbon cables just undo themselves meaning the end connector although in place magically falls out or goes from being in all the way to not being in all the way. Things like that. Or the hp jack, it has to go in just right or it touches the chassis and boom one side is out until you move it around. Always good to test it before you close it up, put the plate back on. That way your sure its working. It's really a bad design in terms of layout as clearance is tight. Other then that the ghosts do sound nice. If you look for SSL tech's rotisserie sound craft ghost mod, it really makes servicing easy on those things. We would do that here except the chief tech I report to didn't like the idea mainly out of the furniture we put them in.

hope that helps. Now I need to figure out why one of the meter bridges works in complete in one ghost but does not work properly in the console it came from. It shows metering but does not show stereo buss meters. Not a big deal as the stereo buss meters on the board work just fine so I am guessing without opening it that a connector fell out or what have you.