pedalboard weirdness

[Marcos - Munky]

Seriously, watch this... Might not be connected

Actually, something similar happened here sometimes too

[mac]

THC

THC can make leds shine for a while

mac

[pinkjimiphoton]

i am stumped. when i opened the case last nite, still glowing. the little donner wah/volume i use was even lit. really weird like linda blair shit affoot lol

[GGBB]

How many LEDs are on? What value CLRs do they use? We could calculate what size capacitors would be necessary to store enough charge to cause this using that data and the RC time constant principal. For example, using an online calculator, it would take just over 3 seconds to discharge a 1000µF cap from 9.5V (brick power) to 2V (LED forward voltage) running through 2k of resistance (5 x 10k in parallel). So to run a few LEDs overnight (lets say 6 hours for fun), you'd need almost 7F (7 million µF) of capacitance. However, most likely it's the rectified AC caps that are doing the main storage - the ones feeding the regulators not the ones after. I can only guess what the Vs and Rs are for that, but its still going to be Farads of capacitance required. What kind of bricks do you use?

[pinkjimiphoton]

How many LEDs are on?

depends. seems to be different couple pedals, usually whatever i have on when i power down, so fuzzface and volume, and the clone i built of the foxx tone machine. the wah/volume is a donner or something, not even big enough to put a pedal in. pinks clipper is often on. the first 5 or 6 pedals in the chain, before my programmable looper are the usual culprits, BUT the boost is in one of the 8 loops of the looper. sometimes its on, sometimes not.

What value CLRs do they use?

could be anywhere between 1.8k and 4.7k on the ones i built. i'm pretty un-anal about it. whatever small value resistor in that range i pull out of the resistor bin gets the nomination usually.

We could calculate what size capacitors would be necessary to store enough charge to cause this using that data and the RC time constant principal. For example, using an online calculator, it would take just over 3 seconds to discharge a 1000µF cap from 9.5V (brick power) to 2V (LED forward voltage) running through 2k of resistance (5 x 10k in parallel). So to run a few LEDs overnight (lets say 6 hours for fun), you'd need almost 7F (7 million µF) of capacitance. However, most likely it's the rectified AC caps that are doing the main storage - the ones feeding the regulators not the ones after. I can only guess what the Vs and Rs are for that, but its still going to be Farads of capacitance required. What kind of bricks do you use?

i use the stock brick that came with the pedalboard, some gator thing that weighs a tonne. there's two of them under the board, and an aux joyo one so everything runs off its own independent supply. the gators are i forget, like 100ma x 8 a piece, a couple of 18v outlets too, but they've been discontinued so not sure of the specs.

the foxx tone machine is the only one with a battery in it, but i use the normal old switching power jacks, so the battery should be disconnected when connected to a wart.

its pretty weird.

if they're on tomorrow nite, i'll try and video the phenomenon.

i thought maybe it was acting like a joule thief somehow or something, but that seems unlikely.

throwing math at me won't help, too many kemzars and quintiliopes for me to grok

no idea whats going on. that said, i have a failure in the power supply to my cloned theory, soooooo... going out right now to pull my board off the truck and debug whatevers wrong <and add the isp decimeter g string clone i built>... so if its still lit, i'll shoot video of it.

it really is weird as hell!

[pinkjimiphoton]

ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND
of course once i fire it up tonite, clone theory works fine. turns out a couple pots were loose and apparently shorting to the case or something. tightened it up.  the lights were off. i used it yesterday. the lights were on when i opened it yesterday. the lights were on when i closed it last nite. 
added ONE pedal to the board, an isp decimator g string clone i built <i love this thing actually>.
got it first in line, with the parallel <yet buffered, and still seems to work well with the fuzzface, guessing its buffering the rest of the chain, once its between the return and output of the  of the pedal itself i mean,.. it works like guitar goes in, there's a guitar out jack that's parallel to the input jack but buffered from the return of the pedal somehow with magical equations and things that make me widdle bwain hurt,  but the guitar signal (in parallel) with the input jack works pretty well, at least in my rig. groovy little piece of kit. confusing as confusing can be to figure out, for my despondently dumb ass anyways. i had to go to the isp site and look it up. just couldn't grok it at first cuzza the labeling. and to quote dino quoting me, wayyyyy above my paygrade.  anyways,
i broke the signal chain so after the wah it goes to the gate in jack on the gstring instead of the input of my vlp8 looper <cheap as hell on ebay, programmable 8 channel looper x 8 banks of 8 pedals like 150. -ish>
then took the output of the g back to the input of my looper. so, i really didn't change much other than putting my dirt pedals <too many> in the loop of the decimator thing to clean up the front end <i use an ns2 in there two after noisy modulation stuff before my ddl/reverb a/b/y, i run everything in mono, the a/b y is set just for a/b, i use it to split the signal off to a eh 44mag power amp driving my talkbox or my stage amp, which i run cleanish and mostly just for volume> and blah blah...
S'ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNyways, i had to check once it was all tightened up and running and stuck down with fresh velcro where necessary, and yanked the cords out.

i think i killed the ghost in the machine. we'll see what happens tomorrow nite. but i may have squashed whatever curious bug that was making this bizzarre ass phenomenon happen.

my life is weird like this. <smh> but that said, i have witnesses to this!!  lol

with my luck and lot in life, i'm sure it will mess up again at some point.

always evolving. right, mr darwin?

elvis has apparently left the building, and remembered when the music's over turn out the lights 

here's a pic of the beast, for posterity's sake. it will probably be different tomorrow. there is ONE pedal outside the board on the input, an early rams head style bmp with an active bax 3 band eq and about 30 db gain in place of the tone stack. low-ish gain transistors <mpsa06, hfe around 200> and man, this thing sounds creamy and violin like. and its got more. its the biggest muff i ever seen, so i called it stiffler's mom. <ahem>

here's da board. two more pedals sit back on my amp, a little master 3band eq/buffer/boost thing i built last in line with an ibanez em5 variant set for a couple very distant rather faint slaps. <hate to clean my echoplexes all the time and worse, hate to just wear 'em out if i don't need to>




here's with all the shit on. lots of lites. anything not lit is probably going blinky blinky




and one with the lights out, city of tiny lights...





and something YOU should listen to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH-rR42jeI0

signal chain goes right to left, stiffler's mom giant muff pi, decimator thing,SWAW autowah, luna fuzz <fuzzface with bass and treble controls run wrong... volume pegged , fuzz to taste, usually 30-50%> , foxx tone machine, resist pedal <hot rodded freddie fuzz>, donner wah/volume <its hip, its one or the other when ya click the switch, the way a damn wah/volume SHOULD be. i made a suggestion. they appear to have listened, it rules.. crybaby style circuit. killer> the back into the decimator, output of decimator to input of looper. first loop is just the mini polytune.
from there, dod 280 comp circuit, dual booster, 30/60db gain,  askewnivibe, cloned theory, donner p90 <cuz its freekin tiny and will fit> an "aroma" <i think> flanger that freakin rules and was cheap. all the modulation, plus the comp, boost and tuner are in the looper. the output of the looper runs thru the ns2 and goes to a nuxx time force delay modeler <set to buffered bypass> and a cheap ass chinese reverb whom's maker escapes me at the moment, which sounds great and is there mainly cuzza its size. from there it hits an a/b, to either the 44mag power amp on the board, or to my stage amp(s).

ya can get lost with this sucker. especially if ya add say, a ludwig phase II and a whammy pedal to it. very very very sick!

soooo.... think it will be lit up again tomorrow?

[pinkjimiphoton]

here's a pic of the phenomenon. these all have their own power supply, and no batteries. this was last nite after troubleshooting another issue on my board... power cords pulled. 5 pedals glowing. tho they DID go out shortly after i snapped this pic. how wack is this shit???

[slashandburn]

Is this a symptom of residual current?   This is the kinda shit that always put me off working on tube amps, or indeed most things beyond the realms of the 9v battery. (Well, the idea of residual current combined with seeing a few dudes who shoulda known better zapp themself really badly, and assuming there was probably a link).

If there's still enough current lurking in that pedal chain to light those up a day after unplugging, God knows what's still lurking in those big ass caps in my 45 watt Head the morning after ive unplugged it and opened it up to have a poke around.

You're not doing much to alleviate my fears of Stealth Current here, Jimi.  Probably a good thing!

[DIY Bass]

I have a big old solid state bass amp with a toroidal transformer and really big caps in the power supply.  I once had somebody trip over the power lead and unplug it from the wall.  He bent over and plugged it back in and the whole time I kept playing and did not lose any volume.

[pinkjimiphoton]

yeah, class d amps will do that... run off the caps for a little bit if the voltage is disturbed. crazy shit!

[brianq]

I have a big old solid state bass amp with a toroidal transformer and really big caps in the power supply.  I once had somebody trip over the power lead and unplug it from the wall.  He bent over and plugged it back in and the whole time I kept playing and did not lose any volume.

I've seen this happen at almost every house party I've been where there was a band playing