Wiring a NomNom for "always on"...

[greatmagnet]

Hey guys—just got my first-ever madBean PCB in the mail, and this is my first post on the forum as well! I've built lots of other pedals from pedalpcb.com and others, but no MadBeanses 'til now.

I'm putting this build into a 2U rack enclosure (along with a bunch of other builds) rather than the usual standalone pedal enclosure, and they will all be armed/disarmed via my Voodoo Labs HEX loop switchers and a midi floorboard. SO, what I REALY want to do is just forget about the 3PDT switch altogether and just wire it up so that the pedal is always on, as is the LED, with no switch needed.

Any tips? I'm guessing I'll want to forget about the J1 and J2 pad pairs at the back of the board altogether, and just wire the input and output jacks completely to the six pads at the front of the PCB in the proper combination, and bridge a couple of those pads so that the LED stays on, but that's about as far as my brain is taking me at the level of experience I have.

Any explanations or "cocktail napkin drawings" you guys could offer, I would HUGELY appreciate!

[mjg]

Yep, you can use the In and Out pads as labelled, and to make the LED always on, connect the L pad to the ground pad next to it.  Or any ground pad.

You'll need a ground connection for the sleeve of your jacks, so either the ground pad at the bottom of the board, or one of the round ones from J1 or J2 will do.

Although if you have the LED always on, then it's not really that useful, other than to indicate power to the board I guess?

[greatmagnet]

Thank you @mjg makes perfect sense!

I would argue the "always on" LED still serves a function:: looking F#%*ING AWESOME.

So @mjg based on your suggestions, am I correct in thinking that the "L1" and "L2" pads within the bottom row of the PCB are both actually GROUND pads, and thus serve the exact same purpose as the circular "L1" and "L2" pads on the PCB's top hump?

[jimilee]

Thank you @mjg makes perfect sense!

I would argue the "always on" LED still serves a function:: looking F#%*ING AWESOME.

So @mjg based on your suggestions, am I correct in thinking that the "L1" and "L2" pads within the bottom row of the PCB are both actually GROUND pads, and thus serve the exact same purpose as the circular "L1" and "L2" pads on the PCB's top hump?

So, if I follow you right, the round J1 and J2 pads at the top are grounds. The J1 and J2 at the bottom are in and out pads for the audio. What he is suggesting is grounding an in and out jack sleeve to the circular J1 and or J2 at the top; the ground at the bottom would go to the power ground.

[mjg]

Yeah, what Jimmi says.   

Basically you are going to need a number of things connected to ground.  One is your power supply.  Another might be the sleeve of your jacks.  Yet another will be the L pad, to turn on the led by completing that circuit.

There are numerous places on the board that are all actually ground - the circular bits of the J pads at the top, and the square GND one at the bottom, and the '-' side of the 9v pads.

So I guess just mix n match the pads to all the places you need, depending on how you have the board installed in your case. 

Maybe have a play with a multimeter, to see which pads are connected to the GND pad, that might be a practical way to see how they are all connected.