toobhed Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Will the JTV run on a dead battery if it is plugged into the POD via VDI cable? Does the battery drain when it is plugged into the VDI cable? Some Background: I'm a new owner of JTV and POD HD 500X. I had been putting it through it's paces for a week, leaving the rig on most of the time to see if the guitar or POD ever acted up or needed rebooted. I started the week with a fully charged battery. I thought the VDI powered AND charged the JTV (now I understand it does NOT charge it,..ok then). So I take it to rehearsal for the first time, play one song (everyone is pretty amazed) then I loose the first 3 strings. I noticed the battery was dead, well one light...not sure if it was blinking because I wasn't aware of the led states at the time. I tried regular 1/4 cable and VDI Cable, rebooted POD, pulled the battery out and inserted it again...but the top three strings would not sound from the piezo. It was what I consider my worst nightmare at a gig. I had to go old school, but I use different turnings and I usually have at least two guitars to accomplish live. Well, glad it happened and I was able to deal with it. I charged the battery and it is fine. I will do some experimenting to see if I can reproduce the problem to know that it was in fact caused by a dead battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Well three non-functional strings certainly isn't normal... You don't need the battery at all if you're running the VDI, it powers the guitar. So dead or running low, if you were plugged in with the VDI, you weren't using the battery anyway. Dead piezos are another story though...don't think it's related to power. The guitar is either on or off. Possibilities would include a connection issue from piezos to the board, or simply dead piezo elements...which happens, but seems rather unlikely that 3 would crap out at once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_Watt Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Remove and charge the battery but you don't need it to run VDI. Dead strings are unrelated to battery. If three are dead, I would check all connections to the board and make sure nothing is loose. At least with the JTV, you can switch to mag pickups if you have a piezo pickup go south on you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clay-man Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Yeah 3 strings dead sounds like a cable is loose. If the strings are all on the same side, chances say that one of those ribbon cables has one side partly out of the socket Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brue58ski Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Confirmed the JTV VDI cannot charge the battery. And, cause it sounded like you might have tried it, do NOT plug both the 1/4" and the VDI in at the same time. The VDI has voltages that as I understand it, over time, will fry things if the 1/4" in plugged in. Not in Line 6 documentation and I think it should be. Unfortunately I have no quick solution for the missing string sound. There is the standard reflashing of the JTV firmware but I don't think it will help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toobhed Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 Thank you all for the replies. I did not realize the guitar could run without the battery installed or I would have tried that as well. I charged it overnight and plugged the battery in and the problem is gone, works without the battery too. With all signs pointing to piezo but having it working after charging the battery makes me nervous. I don't want my lollipop hanging out at a gig so I opened a ticket with support. I don't see any loose connections as far as I can tell, jostling the guitar does not cause anything to cut out. I just want to identify the cause and fix it our avoid making the same mistake. Thanks again everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clay-man Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 The ribbon should lead up to a board somewhere on the bridge. Like I said, if one end is hanging out while the other end is in, it could very well cause a whole side of the guitar to not work. Are all the strings on the same side or is it just random strings that don't work? Like if it's EAD not working, or GBE not working, then it's 99% probably a ribbon cable sticking out on one side. If it's a bunch of random strings all over the guitar that don't work, then that points out to piezos going out. How long have you had this guitar? Did you just get it? If so, I'd talk to the sales person and ask for a replacement and let them handle fixing the old guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Intermittent problems suck. Hard to fix until they become constant problems. These guitars can be weird...if you're lucky it's one and done. Have a backup just in case... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clay-man Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 Intermittent problems suck. Hard to fix until they become constant problems. These guitars can be weird...if you're lucky it's one and done. Have a backup just in case... Very true. You have a problem and it keeps showing up like once a month and you can't recreate it, so you can't send your guitar in and be like "hey fix this" when they can't find it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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