Lights - part II

[eljib]

Hey guys,
When I was getting confused with all of the switching option available in a HH equiped axe I thought it would be great to put in some multi-colored LED's to indicate which coils of which pups were being used, and if possible show different colors for series, parallel, in/out of phase. What do you think?

Does anyone know if this is possible/practical? And how would I go about doing such a thing?

Any reply is appreciated

[Mini-Strat_Maine]

eljib said:

Does anyone know if this is possible/practical? And how would I go about doing such a thing?

Any reply is appreciated

I like the idea, but you might find a big chasm between "possible" and "practical." If my recollections are correct about tri-color LEDs, the way you "bias" it determines the color. I'm not sure if I used the right term, but putting the current to the diode in one direction (positive/negative) makes it turn red, the other direction turns it green. I think you need some AC to get yellow out of a tri-color.

It's a heck of a concept, though. All red indicators for "Series, Full Tilt Bozo." Yellow for "Somewhat More Mellow." Green for "I'm a Laid-Back Rhythm Machine."

[TooManyWires]

What were the options on it as far as switching goes? If you wanted to rig something up, I don't know much about LED's...just that they'd need to have a separate cicuit and a battery, but if you wanted, I'd take a look at it.

[eljib]

Whatever gives me the best ratio of sound options and lighting options. I was thinking about the jimmy page setup, with 4 pushpulls: 2 for coil cut, one for series/parallel, and one for phasing. I'm a very visual person and I know that being able to "see" the pickups in action would help me distinguish which sounds I like best. But, before you go drawing something up maybe someone has a recommendation for better switching options.

[UnklMickey]

O.K. guys, here's my three cents^* on this one.

i'm not real keen on putting batteries in guitars. not saying you shouldn't, but mostly i wouldn't.

basically you need an extra pole on each switch to keep things separate between the audio and the indicator lights.

you can economize on battery drain by using a short duty cycle oscillator (like they used to use on the old LED display calculators) to run the leds. -- but experimentation would be in order to insure that none of that noise gets into the signal chain.



honestly though, if i were to be moved to put batteries in a guitar, i probably would be looking to use fewer rather than more poles. and to get even more complex configurations than are presently possible. that would be a quantum leap forward in switching arrangements.

a bit cryptic, but i'll bet some of you might guess where i'm going with this last part

unk



EDIT:

i just got a P.M. from JohnH. it cause him to think of mostly the same thing i had in mind (just a bit different, in some ways even better).

i'll leave this one alone for a while, to see if anyone else chimes in or P.M.s me with some other variations.

^*i can never seem to stop at putting in two cents (but you guys already knew that!).

[wolf]

I'd agree with unklmickey's assessment.
Have you looked for push pull pots with switches that have more terminals than a DPDT switch? Do they even make those?
I don't like batteries for anything. (Not just in guitars). I have replaced all the batteries in my effects with a power supply (Godlyke I think is the name of it).
How will these lights be mounted on the guitar? Will it require drilling another hole or two?
Let's suppose you have 2 LED's that can each show 3 colors. Do you think that is really going to make the switching easier to see? Let's suppose one LED is showing yellow and the other is showing red. Would you really know what that meant?
Heck, this is GuitarNuts and I admire your initiative. However, even I think some wiring ideas might be a little bit too much. (As I said, I rewired my 94 sound guitar back to a more manageable arrangement).

[eljib]

Unk: I'm too stupid to catch on to your cryptic clue, but I'm very interested in becoming smarter. I await the details.

Wolf: This setup would be, to me, only a simple (and cool, and visually arresting) way to see what is being used. On my guitars right now I simply look at switches to see what's going on, i.e. pup, series/parallel, in/out phase. I'd like to do it with as few switches as possible in order to keep a clean look, so I'm looking at push/pulls, which I know are harder for me to read "at-a-glance." (I have yet to investigate the matter of XPDT switches, btw).

I want to do this for a "from-the-ground-up," completely one-off, 2 humbucker guitar project I have been designing. Nothing about this guitar will be very reminicsent of classic design, so I don't really care how tacky the lights may or may not look. As far as form goes, I envisioned LED's placed just above each coil of each hum, so that I could see at a glance what config was active at any given moment. For your "red-yellow" example, to me it would mean both highlighted coils are active (red for series, whatever for parallel) and yellow indicates out-of phase.

I also anticipate that, as you stated, there could be many configs that I neither like nor find usefull. However, while I would have a difficult time navigating your 94 sound guitar, I think it would be made easier by the LED's.