EB Volume Pedal Buffer Iinstallation

Version 2.1

This document is intended to instruct you step-by step through modifying your Ernie Ball™ Volume
Pedal with the Griffin Effects Buffer Retrofit. If you aren’t confident in your solder-ing skills, it
may be best to have a professional install it.

The Buffer Retrofit can be purchased with a DC Jack installed (with or without a DC cable
extention), with a cable extention installed, or both.

Warning!!! It is important to follow all ESD (Electro Static Discharge) practices while installing
this. Make sure you are grounded and your solder equipment is grounded. Any ESD damage is not
covered by any warranties.
Disassembly:1.
Remove the nuts and washers on each of the input and output jacks. 2. Remove the two screws on
the bottom of the pedal that hold the jack plate in place.

The assembly can now be removed and the face plate can be removed from the circuit board.

3. Remove the 3 wires from the circuit board. Leave them attached to the potentiometer.

4. If you ordered your buffer board without jacks, remove the jacks from the circuit board. If
you ordered acircuit board with jacks, move onto the next step.
5. Solder the wires to the new circuit board. The wires should enter the bottom side of the board
and you solder them on the top side of the board.

We’ve encountered some pedals that have the two outer wires reversed but the red wire always
goes in the middle and typically the brown wire goes in the left pad and the orange in the right
pad. The image below shows one that had the wires reversed. Basically, if your pedal works the in
the opposite direction (toe up is full volume and toe down is mute, you just reverse the two outer
wires. This will make the pedal work in the opposite direction. Regardless of wire color the
illustration below shows what lugs should be wired to what pad on the board.
6. Now it’s time to pick what color LED you want. There are 3 pads by the LED labeled 1, 2, and 3.
They are labeled this instead of R, G, and B because not all of these types of LED’s have the same
color on the same pins. I suggest to take a small piece of wire and hold it to each side of the
jumper and see what color the LED lights up for each one. Make a note and choose the color you
want by soldering a blob across the appropriate jumper.

7. Next we added a buffer to the Tuner Output. If you want a buffer on the tuner output, put a
solder blob across the “YES” jumper pads. If you don’t want a buffer on the tuner output, put a
solder blob across the “NO” jumper pads. You can only put a solder blob across one. You can’t put
a solder blob on both the Yes and No jumper pads.

That’s it. You’re done. Put everything back together. If your pedal doesn’t go to full mute, you
probably need to adjust the string so the pot rotates a little more to the mute side. If your pedal
seems to work backwards, swap the brown and orange wires on the potentiometer.

The pedal now needs 9vDC center negative supply to work.

There is an extension available at http://griffineffects.com to make it easier to plug and unplug the
DC power.
If you want to drill a hole in your pedal and mount the DC jack to the outside for even easier
access, this is how it’s wired up. V+ pad on the board goes to top horizontal lug of the DC jack and
the G pad goes to the vertical lug of the DC jack.

In version 2.0 a LED and switch was added. This switch turns on/off the LED. The LED lights up the
inside of your pedal. It doesn’t function as a bypass indicator as the pedal doesn’t have a bypass.
It’s strictly for looks.

Revisions:
7.30.2014 - Added remote DC jack to the instructions
9.02.2014 - Swapped orange and brown wires in illustration
8.01.2016 - Version 2.0 - Added LED and switch. Converted to SMT
10.02.2017 - Added selectable buffer to Tuner, Changed LED to selectable RGB,