ericmeyer4
New member
I have been working on installing an LED light into my new guitar project and I must say I have been having a large degree of difficulty. With a little help from "Benye" I was able to get the job done.
Anyone wanting to stick and led light (or 2+) in their guitar here is how I did it. Hopefully this will make your job a little bit easier.
I used a stereo jack, because I did not want to take up space on the guitar installing an on/off switch.
Here is how I wired my guitar.
Using a 9 volt battery, connect the red wire (+) to the + side of the LED. The positive side is usually the longest. Also connect a resistor in series with the led. (It doesn't matter where it goes as long as it is in there) The resistor will bring down the voltage of the battery; this keeps the LED from being fried. Now connect the resistor to the ground and the black lead from the battery to the left side of the jack.
The hot from the pickups will go the right side of the jacks.
Troubleshoot.
Why doesn't my light turn on?
Try switching the lead around from the battery. Before I wired the light to the out jack I held all of the connections together to see if I could get the light to light up. Once I got the combination correct I soldered everything together.
Why am I not getting any sound and why is my light turning on then off?
This happened to me. If I pushed it in 1 click I would get sound. If I pushed it in so the plug was half way between the 1st and 2nd click I would get my light. If I pushed it in all the way I would get nothing. To fix this simply switch the black wire from the battery and the hot from the pickups.
If you want to wire more than 1 LED say to do an entire fret board. Here is ONE way to do it...
I recommend this website to calculate the size of resistors needed and schematics to wire up more than 1 led.
For my project I used a 5mm Green LED from Radio Shack.
It was 2.1v with 25mA current. Using a 9v battery this required me to have a 330ohm 1/2w resistor. Use the website it works well for figuring out what you need for the job. Just type in the number of LEDs, the size of the voltage source, and the voltage and current handling from the LED and it will give you the resistors and a wiring diagram.
-Eric
Anyone wanting to stick and led light (or 2+) in their guitar here is how I did it. Hopefully this will make your job a little bit easier.
I used a stereo jack, because I did not want to take up space on the guitar installing an on/off switch.
Here is how I wired my guitar.
Using a 9 volt battery, connect the red wire (+) to the + side of the LED. The positive side is usually the longest. Also connect a resistor in series with the led. (It doesn't matter where it goes as long as it is in there) The resistor will bring down the voltage of the battery; this keeps the LED from being fried. Now connect the resistor to the ground and the black lead from the battery to the left side of the jack.
The hot from the pickups will go the right side of the jacks.
Troubleshoot.
Why doesn't my light turn on?
Try switching the lead around from the battery. Before I wired the light to the out jack I held all of the connections together to see if I could get the light to light up. Once I got the combination correct I soldered everything together.
Why am I not getting any sound and why is my light turning on then off?
This happened to me. If I pushed it in 1 click I would get sound. If I pushed it in so the plug was half way between the 1st and 2nd click I would get my light. If I pushed it in all the way I would get nothing. To fix this simply switch the black wire from the battery and the hot from the pickups.
If you want to wire more than 1 LED say to do an entire fret board. Here is ONE way to do it...
I recommend this website to calculate the size of resistors needed and schematics to wire up more than 1 led.
For my project I used a 5mm Green LED from Radio Shack.
It was 2.1v with 25mA current. Using a 9v battery this required me to have a 330ohm 1/2w resistor. Use the website it works well for figuring out what you need for the job. Just type in the number of LEDs, the size of the voltage source, and the voltage and current handling from the LED and it will give you the resistors and a wiring diagram.
-Eric
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