Charlie_Watt

When the screw came out you probably broke the wire going from the Piezo to the board. You may need to get a new Piezo and replace the damaged one.

Sweetwater has them too.

I call that alcohol abuse! Drink your beer - don't dump it on your gear! I agree that Pabst tastes a lot like dog Pi$$.

I think the Spank is way better on my Variax 500. (With probably half the DSP)

I did not order mine but I did their thing where they would email me when they are available. I will order then and take my chances. I don't like buying when supplies are short like this. If I have a problem with it I could wait a long time for a replacement.

Thanks for fixing my link. My previous experience with the Line6 cable is that it was inferior to the others out there. Stiffer and not as well made. Maybe they have improved it. Anyway, the Besttronics cables are great. I have several guitar cables from them as well as my VDI cable.

I use Elixir strings on mine. .012 to .053 I don't know what they came with. I got mine on Ebay used. I always run mine on batteries.

They have been out of stock at Sweetwater long enough that I bet they will ship out their entire allocation when they get them.

Old "new ones" have been showing up lots of places.

VDI cable is a standard Cat5 Cable with special shells on the ends. Buy a good one. They are not that expensive. I got mine from Best-Tronics www.ptpa.com and it is very nice. Don't buy the Line6 one. I doubt very much that it is a cap problem if you don't have it with the VDI. The power path is basically the same.

If your monitors have XLR inputs, I would use XLR cables. They are lower noise - especially if you have your unit connected to a laptop via USB and the Laptop power supply is plugged in. I had lots of noise that way until I went to XLR cables.

You need to find out where the bad connection is. The 1/4 inch jack has a power switch that connects the battery to the board when you plug in the guitar cable. I would start looking there for a bad switch. Next look where the switch goes to the board inside. if it powers fine from the VDI jack, then your electronics are ok. I use rechargeable NiMh AA batteries - 2500 mAH. I have two sets and they last around 6 hours a charge. If you are not using the VDI, I would go that route. One thing to be very careful of: When you plug in the battery carrier make triple sure that you connect the connector the right way. If you even touch it the wrong way you will blow a diode on the board. That may have happened on yours but I doubt it since you got it sort of working. You can't use the JTV battery unless you are willing to find the battery box and route out the guitar to make it fit. I would go the rechargeable way. It has worked fine for me over the 10 years I have owned Variax guitars with AA batteries.

As cruisinon2 says lack of supply does not mean high demand. In this case it doesn't. I am sure that these guitars are made in limited production runs when the supply on hand runs low. Places on line sell most of them and they have to wait to get a few when the limited supply runs low. The novelty has worn off on these JTV's in the 5 years or so that they have been out. Nothing new has come out of line6 in this area other than the Standard which isn't anything new at all.

Try your guitar directly into an amp. Battery removed, regular guitar cable. It should be plenty loud with the mags only. If not, there is a problem with it.

W?? the ?? is the year. Eg 12 = 2012.

For the same $$ you can get a very good Powered PA speaker with plenty of balls.

Sweetwater will post pictures of the actual guitars when they have them in stock. Look at the Serial Number. Many I have seen lately are 2012 builds. That is 4 years old and you don't want that.

A brand new guitar should not need any treatment to make it work! Send it back.

A regular guitar cable works just fine with a JTV into an amp. No TRS required or wanted unless you are using the external power supply which does not come with a JTV. The mags should be plenty loud without even installing the battery. Try removing it.

Something is wrong the mag pickups should be plenty loud with the volume up.

I would not get a Line6 cable. They are inferior to the others out there. I got mine from BestTronics: ptpa.com. Their cable is very well made and nice and flexible.

I would go for a decent PA speaker. I have not heard much good here about the Ampifi.

I just do not believe that Helix is a real high volume item at $1500. Maybe higher than they predicted. Hopefully the supply will improve soon. Now that they have an editor I am ready to upgrade from my HD500x. I am waiting for Sweetwater to have them in stock.

More likely their production is low volume and slow.

It looks to me like the end isn't quite assembled right. You should be able to fix it so that the Cat5 plug is centered.