Warranty period only Fender elite or Jazz 5 unobtainable jack socket fix

Ward Guitar and Electronic Services
Fix for unobtainable replacement jacks for Fender Elite series.
After spending some time on the net no replacement jack/switch could be found in the uk.
A Deeply Depressing phone call to fender on the Monday morning informed me that this jack is warranty period only ! like so many parts I enquire about expect no support from fender. So do we scrap a £2000 bass and send to landfill or think outside the box.
OK, so if you have a Fender elite series bass, or any guitar that uses 18 volt active electronics ie: fender Roland vc strat, American deluxe elite bass, read on. This system requires the 8 pin stereo switching jack (part no. 0073618049) to connect both batteries when the jack is inserted. This is easy with one battery. A decent open frame standard stereo jack will work just fine. .but not with two. I had a bass in recently which was draining the batteries when not plugged in. The jack was in a sorry state .
Ok, a simple double pole switch and a hole in the scratch plate would work fine, but it needs to be turned off and on manually. This would mean drilling holes in your custom shop guitar. So I have designed a very simple relay unit, which uses a photmos relay to accomplish the task, with a standard off the shelf stereo jack. It only has two components and draws very little current in operation. A standard relay would flatten the batteries in a very short time . A read relay still uses too much current to be viable. An IR photomos relay draws just 1.25 ma for reliable operation and has an on resistance of just 25 ohms. Most pre-amps draw less than 5ma so the voltage drop across the Mosfet relay is around 0.25 volts. I have drawn out the circuit and listed the parts if anybody is interested in building this.

[@As5Hat]

Hi there, I don't see a list of parts other than the photo/mos. What wattage resistor are you using. Looks like a standard 1W or 2W ceramic. Also wondering what gauge wires you're using. It also looks like you cut a red wire (pin 4?) and from the battery connector and jumped it to pcb of the output connector (also pin 4?), then on the backside ran another red wire from here to the relay. The circuit diagram is good, was just curious about the p/n or make of the resistor and tolerance, as well as wire gauge and why the cut connector wire was jumped in this way. I'm assuming because it's cleaner than routing the wire to the back side of the output, then having a second wire out to the photo/mos. Thanks for figuring this mod out 👍. Curious about the battery drain compared to the stock Roland switching stereo jack, likely negligible.

[@stevewardguitars1661]

HI, There are many ways to wire in the new circuit board by cutting wires etc. I have left this open to the individual user to sort for themselves should they wish to go down this route. A simple DPDT mini toggle switch and a new hole in the front panel would be a simpler option. I am still very annoyed with Fender customer services and support. There is no support out of warranty period!
The resistor is a 1/4 watt 5k6. This gives a current draw for the photomos relay of around 1.5ma for reliable switching. The RDS on of the fet relay at this level is around 25 Ohms. The current draw of the preamp is 5ma so only 0.125volts is lost across the relay. This is insignificant in relation to the variance in the battery voltages.
The wire gauge is really not important . I used stranded 7/02 thin hookup wire.
Regards Steve

[@As5Hat]

@@stevewardguitars1661 thank thank you. And was thinking the exact same thing about adding a DPDT switch. I've been modding the hell out the bass for about 4 months now and every single part on it seems to be non standard Right down to the neck plate and control plate and pick guard , pickup covers etc if you want them in any other colour. I love the bass but the electronics pcb is probably the most frustrating part. Since I have to match drill a hole for the active toggle anyways, I might as well just do a second hole and use the switch option. This relay seems to be difficult to get outside of quantities of 10 in my region, plus the lead time is over a month even at that. Thank you for your reply so Quickly and just wanted to thank you again for figuring out a solution for this. Assuming the DPDT switch has 6 contacts like the other switch, would I just be intercepting the red black and white from the output pcb connector to the new 2nd toggle, and connect the black and Green wire to the GND LUG? Using a pure tone gold plated stereo jack. Looks the same as the switch craft but fits in the square hole without enlarging. Thanks again for any help, I'm not as good at electrical mods as yourself but I'm very competent at soldering and following circuit diagrams. Would have been fun to build your circus for the auto switching but i think having an extra hole for a toggle might even allow for some extra options with functionality based on which type of toggle I end up going with. Was almost tempted to swap out the entire preamp at one point lol. I think you'd love all the mods I've been doing. I call it my Golden Ratio Jazz Bass Project. It's coming along nicely. The only part that is literally impossible to get would be a gold truss rod wheel, even though it even has a fender p/n but they won't sell it to me. Might as well take the wheel off and just spray paint it. Btw, greasy groove is the only shop i found that actually had a template for making custom pick guards. Excited to get em.

[@stevewardguitars1661]

@@As5Hat The bass belonged to a customer. I no longer have anyway of checking the wiring for you. I think since all the switching was done at the original multipole jack , it would be a matter of just linking the jack switching leads to the switch. A standard mono jack would then be fine. It should be easy to trace the battery + & - connections to the original jack . These are then simply grounded by the new switch. If you look at my schematic of the original jack socket it should make things a little clearer. A multimeter which would indicate where the + & - battery supply's are on the jack . These just need to be grounded via the dpdt switch . Hope this makes some sense. I apologise for not being able to assist further.
Regards Steve