Took me long enough to see the light...

jhaneyzz

jhaneyzz

Well-known member
I had a girlfriend in high school who's father once told here that thunder was the sound of clouds bumping into each other. She never thought about it again because it sufficed.

I started building pedals on vero board and got used to adding current limiting resistors at the point of connection with the led, i.e. on the anode leg.

Everyone knows that different color LED's need different CLR's right? shit might blow up if you get that wrong...

So when I moved to PCB's i just assumed that the board maker didn't know what color LED I was gonna use, so there couldn't possibly be a CLR built into the circuit, so I should just keep my practice of soldering a resistor to the leg of the LED, which, in my builds with fancy wiring is a complete PITA....

1683173589021.png

I was soldering a bunch of boards the other day and got to thinking (ya know how every damn circuit has a 5817 diode and it turns out that is because every circuit needs polarity protection) I wonder why every damn board has at least one 4.7k resistor? and damn 4.7K gets thrown around as a common value for CLRs. ( I tend to use 1K because I need the extra lumens to illuminate the marbles (or so I thought)

I guess everyone knows the punchline by now...

so now my wiring is going to be even prettier (and a tiny bit brighter)


1683173477377.png
 
It would be my preference if the clr was labeled as such o the pcb. Every pedalpcb board first thing I do is look through the build docs to figure out which 4k7 is the CLR so I don’t fill that in without noticing, since I also usually use a different value. But it’s probably a tradeoff for ease of building for new builders so they don’t have to ask what clr means
 
phi1 said:
It would be my preference if the clr was labeled as such o the pcb. Every pedalpcb board first thing I do is look through the build docs to figure out which 4k7 is the CLR so I don’t fill that in without noticing, since I also usually use a different value. But it’s probably a tradeoff for ease of building for new builders so they don’t have to ask what clr means
Click to expand...
1683205102871.png
 
Do you have go-to clr values for different led types? I’ve been liking green and yellow diffused lately, but they’re usually a little dim with the standard resistor. I also inherited a big case full of superbright water-clear LEDs, but I haven’t been using them because they’re so bright.

I guess I could work this out pretty quick on a breadboard…
 
phi1 said:
It would be my preference if the clr was labeled as such o the pcb. Every pedalpcb board first thing I do is look through the build docs to figure out which 4k7 is the CLR so I don’t fill that in without noticing, since I also usually use a different value. But it’s probably a tradeoff for ease of building for new builders so they don’t have to ask what clr means
Click to expand...

I like that Robert's been labeling some on newer boards CLR because I've started using prewired bezel assemblies and using a jumper on the board but completely agree on that being a totally alright tradeoff. I've started playing around with different ways of labeling it on my own boards and have been pretty happy with this:

1683205246645.png

Erik S said:
I also inherited a big case full of superbright water-clear LEDs, but I haven’t been using them because they’re so bright.
Click to expand...

I believe @Chuck D. Bones uses 22Ks for his superbrights but obviously YMMV
 
Erik S said:
Do you have go-to clr values for different led types? I’ve been liking green and yellow diffused lately, but they’re usually a little dim with the standard resistor. I also inherited a big case full of superbright water-clear LEDs, but I haven’t been using them because they’re so bright.

I guess I could work this out pretty quick on a breadboard…
Click to expand...
To brighten go down to dull go up, 3k3 or 2k2 would probably be a good start for your diffused, 6k8 or 8k2 or even 10k to take the edge off the super brites.
 
Alan W said:
Since I often run pedals at more than 9 volts, I’ll use a trim pit sometimes. My go to is usually 6K8, even the Tayda 3mm are often too bright for me with a 4K7.
Click to expand...
I got a customer unit back for a mod and found that he had put gaff tape over the LEDs because they were blinding him on a dark stage. Because of this I started putting trimpots in when I have front-facing non-diffused LEDs. I use a 10k trimpot in series with a 2k2 resistor. Some people (like me) want to be blinded, others prefer it to be barely on. The trimpot helps everyone stay happy.
 
vigilante398 said:
I got a customer unit back for a mod and found that he had put gaff tape over the LEDs because they were blinding him on a dark stage. Because of this I started putting trimpots in when I have front-facing non-diffused LEDs. I use a 10k trimpot in series with a 2k2 resistor. Some people (like me) want to be blinded, others prefer it to be barely on. The trimpot helps everyone stay happy.
Click to expand...
Good call. I typically use much higher resistances than that (~88k) with my standard pink LEDs myself, I barely want to know they exist. I'm even doing back firing pilot lights on some builds these days. ;)

Edit: I recently tried roughing up some pink waterclears with 320 grit, it makes a nice diffused effect. So, 88k CLR and 320 finish is my current squeeze.
 
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