Sound effect pedal

This invention relates to adapting a conventional sound effect pedal that is battery powered pedal to one that is powered from conventional AC power source. In particular it relates to providing an adapter for converting a conventional battery powered petal to one powered from an AC source without physically changing any part of the structure of the original pedal and can readily change back to a battery powered one.

At the present time, there are modern sound effect pedals that have a built in jack for being connected to a “on line” AC power source, and very many older battery powered sound effect pedals in use for string instruments that start draining power from the battery as soon as the cable from the string instrument is plug into the the sound receiving jack of the pedal. As a result, with battery powered devices the voltage starts dropping and after a time, for example an hour, the sound emanating during the use when playing the instrument is adversely effected. Further, after use for a few hours, the battery has to be replaced which can be relatively costly over time. The older pedals can be modified by drilling a hole into the pedal housing for connecting an on line source to power the petal internal circuitry. However, older pedal can be worth quite a bit, for example, about two to twelve hundred dollars. Drilling a hole into the housing can substantially decrease the value of the pedal.

In order to provide novel structure (adapter) for modifying a battery powered sound effect pedal to one that is powered from a conventional AC power source without making a physical change (without modifying) the battery powered pedal, for example, such as drilling hole in its housing, this invention has been made.

The sound effect pedal includes a conventional pedal housing, a convention pedal base, and an adapter intermediate the base and housing that mounts an adapter cord having a power inlet jack which is electrically connected to an adapter connector that is connectable to a battery type terminal connector that is snapped onto the terminals of a pedal battery for powering conventional pedal circuitry. The pedal circuitry is mounted in the hosing.

One of the objects of the invention is to provide new and novel means for converting a battery powered sound effect petal to one powered by an electrical AC power source. A further object of this invention is to provide a new and novel adapter that is removable mountable between the housing and base of a convention sound effect pedal for converting the convention sound effect pedal from a battery powered one to one powered from a convention AC source without making any physical changes to the conventional base and cover.

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of the sound effect pedal of this invention;

FIG. 2 is a front view of the adapter of the sound effect pedal of FIG. 1 ;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary cross section view of the adapter that is generally taken along the line and in the direction of the arrows 3 - 3 of FIG. 6 ;

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary cross sectional view of the sound effect petal of FIG. 1 with a vertical intermediate portion broken away, said view being generally taken along the line and in the direction of the arrows 4 - 4 of FIG. 6 ;

FIG. 5 is a side view of the sound effect pedal of FIG. 1 ;

FIG. 6 is fragmentary top view of the adapter and base; and

FIG. 7 is a somewhat diagrammatic showing of the components for powering the pedal circuitry and connecting the string instrument to the amplifier.

Referring to the drawings, and in particular to FIG. 1 , there is shown the sound effect pedal of this invention, generally designated 10 , in a disassembly condition. The pedal 10 includes a convention open bottom, generally rectangular housing H, a conventional, generally rectangular base B and screws (not shown) for removably securing the base directly to the housing when being used as a conventional battery powdered pedal. The housing mounts conventional pedal circuitry 12 that is shown by a dotted line block in FIG. 7 and is connected to a sound output jack 14 that is mounted by the side wall 17 of the housing and is connected to a sound input jack 19 that is mounted by the other side wall 20 of the housing. A push button 21 that is operably connected to the pedal circuitry is mounted on the top wall 11 of the housing that upon being push down by a foot results in changing the emitted sound effect while control knobs 23 and 24 are mounted by the top wall 11 and connected to the ciruitry for selectively changing sound effects provided by the circuitry. Further, a snap on battery terminal connector 15 is connected to the circuitry for powering the circuitry and can be snapped onto the battery terminals of, for example a 9 volt battery (not shown), the connector having snap on contacts 15 A, 15 B for being snap on the respective negative and positive terminals of a battery (not shown) for powering the conventional pedal.

For converting a conventional DC powered sound effect pedal such as described above, there is provided an sound effect adapter A of this invention. The adapter includes a generally rectangular adapter frame, generally designated 25 , that is open at the top and bottom (see FIG. 1 ). The frame has a perimetric bottom notch 29 to receive the perimetric flange 28 of the base to facilitate the alignment of the adapter with the base during assembly. Further, the frame side walls 27 have upper flanges 31 extendable into notches 32 in the housing, the rear wall 44 has a rear flange 44 A extendable into housing rear wall notch (not shown) and the flanges 33 , 33 A of the front wall 43 extendable into the housing notches 34 .

Since the adapter frame front wall 43 is of a greater height than the rear wall 44 and the perimetric bottom edge 43 A of the frame wall is substantially planer, the adapter side walls 27 are trapezoidal whereby the top wall is sloped to make it easier for the user using a foot for operating the button 21 . In each corner portion of each of the base and adapter there is provided a bore 37 and 38 respectively extended therethrough for having screws 39 extended therethrough and threaded into bores 40 of the housing for retaining the housing, adapter and base in an assembled condition. Since the housing bottom perimetric edge 32 A is planar and the base flange perimetric top edge is planar with the planes being parallel in a convention pedal assembly position, screws (not shown) are of a shorter length than screws 39 . However, when the housing, adapter and base are in an assembled condition, the central axes of the housing bores are not coaxial with those of the adapter and base and accordingly the bores of the adapter are sufficiently large and the base bores have upper bore portions are of smaller diameters than lower bore portions with screw heads extend therein to permit the screws 39 extending at a slight different angles than when the short screws are used to assemble the base directly to the housing.

The adapter frame front wall 43 includes an upward opening, generally U-shaped slot 41 with a similarly shaped groove 41 A to have the rectangular jack mount 45 of the adapter power cord, generally designed 50 , slidably mounted therein. The jack mount top edge abuts against the housing and mounts the inlet DC power jack 49 of the cord. Leads 51 connect the power jack to posts 52 a , 52 b of the adapter connector 52 that form a snap fit with the contacts 15 A, 15 B of the connector 15 .

A conventional power source power cord P has a plug 55 pluggable into the adapter jack 49 , a cable 53 connecting the plug to a transformer 57 that has prongs 57 A that can be plugged into a conventional wall socket (not shown) of an on line AC power source. The transformer provides a step down DC voltage suitable for operating the pedal circuitry. A cable 58 has a plug 58 A that is plugged into the jack 19 to connect the musical stringed instrument 59 , for example an electric guitar, for transmitting sound to the pedal circuitry while a cable 70 has a plug 70 A that can be plug into jack 14 for transmitting sound from the pedal circuitry to the amplifier 71 .

With the connector 52 connected to connector 15 to transmit power from cord P and the power cord plug 70 plugged into an “on line” source of AC power and the plug 58 A is plugged into jack 18 , the circuitry 12 is energized (starts drawing power). The sound emanating from the string instrument, for example an electric guitar or the like, and broadcasted by the amplifier is modified by depressing the push bottom 21 . The modification is depended on the circuitry provided in the housing. It is to be understood that a number of pedals with modifications in the their respective circuitry can be mounted to a pedal board to provide different sound effects. Further the pedal of this invention may have a conventional foot pedal (not shown) mounted to the housing for depressing the push bottom.

It is be understood the size and shaped of the adapter depends the model of the conventional DC powered pedal that is to be modified to be an AC powered one without damaging the DC powered pedal housing and base. Further, it is to be understood the housing, base and adapter may not have cooperating notches and flanges although it is preferred they do to facilitate assembly. In the event the conventional DC battery powered pedal is of a type that has its top wall sloped downwardly relative its bottom edges, than the adapter of this invention to be used therewith could have its front wall of a height that is the same as the height of its rear wall for converting the battery powered pedal to one that uses a cord P instead of a battery for powering the pedal circuitry.