My Schiit Vali 2 has a mechanically faulty on/off switch, stuck in a center position so I can’t turn the device on, mechanically that is.
I’d like to know if there’s a way to override the switch and _ somehow_ turn on the amp.
Here’s pics of the stuck switch and the corresponding section under the hood.
What can I do to cheat the amp on?
Are you sure about the pins you have selected on this switch?
You might be shorting two separate circuits together.
Well, I connected the pins which were instructed, the two lowest ones, with a strand of copper. It works now. If it works, no problemo?
Thanks!
Well @st50maint… @Arenith mentioned that the switch has three positions: up, down and middle. By the way: don’t ask me why that is. The logical conclusion is that those two pins have to be shorted. Sometimes one has to take a calculated guess to be succesfull… Right…?
It has two positions by default: on (up) & off (down).
Very unexpected results by shorting those two pins. That would be two separate poles of this DPDT (double pole double throw) switch which would never be connected if the switch is working as designed. May have something to do with the mechanical failure, but you could just buy a new switch and replace the bad one. How are your soldering skills?
When the switch is in the “up” position these two pairs of pins would be shorted.
So… Are those pins sometimes connected to each other through a short-sharing connection?
I really did avoid touching the second pins with the wire.
If the switch has two positions (so it has obviously no “center” position) I go with @kcleveland123…
Even if the switch has a center position (unlikely) then that would be OFF and none of the terminals are connected to each other in that position.
Is there any possibility of critical failure now that I’ve connected two unlikely pins and yet the device works as intended? It’s just a switch after all…
No idea. You’ve connected two pins that were never intended to be connected.
a better detailed shot of the tracks would help -
it is possible to connect a DPDT switch such that bypassing as described in the first answer will work…
From their website it says that the wall wart supplies 6 volts AC and 24 volts AC.
Assuming that the power switch was designed to turn both voltages on and off you could have a problem.
If it were me, I would remove the jumper you installed and measure voltages on the switch.
If both 6 volts AC and 24 volts AC are present, the 2 jumpers described above by kcleveveland would be how I would wire it.
Either way it makes no sense to me how your jumper actually got the unit to work.
It only makes sense if there is only one power supply being switched by the switch (it could be switching a DPDT relay to switch both supplies) and the centre (“wiper”) connections are shorted together by the PCB, with the single supply being switched connected to the two bottom contacts.
That would only make sense if there were only DPDT available to the manufacturer (or they were preferred for some reason) even though only a single cicruit being switched.
Otherwise, I agree with @st50maint that all is not well with the bypass originally suggested.
It may be OBE because of the work already done, but Schiit will fix stuff for a nominal charge in my experience, having sent in a component with a similar switch issue.
My 2¢
