Boneyard V1 High gain status led problem

[zick]

Hi everyone. I have just built the boneyard V1 which was a lot of fun to do and it sounds fine. The only problem is that the status led of the high gain channel burns very weakly in the following situations: The high gain status led does burn brightly when only the boost switch is also engaged. However when  the high gain and crunch channels are engaged only the crunch channel status led burns brightly and the high gain status led is then barely visible. When the crunch and boost channels are engaged their respective leds burn brightly but the high gain status led is barely visible. When all three channels are engaged I am measuring 1,69 Volts at the high gain status led while the other two status leds are getting around 1,86 Volts. I am measuring the mentioned Voltage differences as soon as the crunch channel is engaged in addition to the high gain channel. Nothing happens with this Voltage at the high gain status led when only the boost channel is engaged in addition to the high gain channel.  I guess the problem of the high gain led visibility must be in the Voltage drop?

Can I solve this by using a lower value current limiting resistor for the high gain status led? Right now I have followed the directions in Madbean's manual for the V1 and have used 4k7 on all status leds. All my wiring, including the led wiring, is exactly the same as in the manual for the V1.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[jimilee]

What type leds are you using? bright or normal diffused? I wouldn't think the current draw of the pedal itself is enough to make that much of a difference. is the power wiring shielded?

[zick]

Hi Jimilee, Thanks for your reply. None of my wiring is shielded and I have used normal red 5mm leds...

[rullywowr]

All LEDs should be the same brightness as the connection is identical for all three (they all have a CLR of 4.7k and all are connected to 9v/GND).

As you say it dims when you have the boost switch on, there may be an issue with the wiring.  You are sure you put the resistor on the 9v side and not the ground side of the LED...  If you got this backwards that could make it dimmer. 

I would double check that and also check the ground connections.  If all the above checks outyou may have a faulty 3PDT.  These 3PDT switches don't like to be heated up for very long as they can melt contacts internally.  You can check the resistance to see if it is greater than it should be.

My gut instinct thinks one of the resistors is on a ground lead feeding a 3pDT instead of the 9v side.

[selfdestroyer]

Might be a dumb question but... Are you running this on a battery or wall power? If you using a 1Spot or something of the sorts you could be maxing out your milliamps. I had a digital pedal that would turn on and off on its own because my power supply was not putting out enough milliamps for all my pedals. Just a thought.

[zick]

Thanks for the replies! The tip to check the led resistors put me on the right track. The problem turned out to be my wiring. I accidentally put the resistor for the drive status led in series with the resistor for the high gain status led resulting in too much resistance for the high gain led to be able to emit enough light. Many thanks!

A little bit off topic: Can anyone maybe tell me how to locate a drain resistor for jfets? I have some effects in which I want to bias the jfets by replacing the drain resistors for trimpots. I know the values of the drain resistors but there are more resistors in these effects with this same value and I do not know how to locate the right ones. I am just starting out in electronics..

[Govmnt_Lacky]

If you using a 1Spot or something of the sorts you could be maxing out your milliamps.

1Spot is rated to 1700mA! That would have to be one heck of a draw to max it out! 

[selfdestroyer]

If you using a 1Spot or something of the sorts you could be maxing out your milliamps.

1Spot is rated to 1700mA! That would have to be one heck of a draw to max it out! 

The older ones were not rated that high. but yeah, I would be worried if I maxed out 1700mA. haha