Hoffman Amplifiers Tube Amplifier Forum
Amp Stuff => Tube Amp Building - Tweaks - Repairs => Topic started by: TubeGeek on November 03, 2016, 09:33:27 pm
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Has anyone ever added LED's to a fender reverb/tremolo footswitch before?
I have a project where the guy is asking for it and I'm not clear on how to proceed.
I know that a 9V battery will need to power the LED's so that'll have to fit in the footswitch thus a new enclosure will be needed so I will more than likely use a standard mojo two button footswitch.
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> a 9V battery will need to power the LEDs
Many 1990s amps sent power out the jack to light pedal LEDs. Detect if the jack line is at 4V (LED on) or 15V (LED off) and do logic accordingly. Some are simple. Others are more complex than the whole rest of the amplifier.
If you do the battery, you may need DPDT switches. In some cases this might be avoided. As DPDT and even 3PDT switches are now common stomp-box parts, I would not spend a lot of brain-pain working out a SPST solution.
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I assume you are talking about a blackface/silverface rev/trem pedal which is just the two switches in the small enclosure, cable, 2 qty RCA plugs.
As opposed to buying the separate parts, I would bet you good money that you would better off starting with a brand new Peavey pedal which you can buy brand new for $30 (the LED type) and rewire it for internal battery and change the plugs on the end of the cable.
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A couple important things to remember about the 'standard' blackface era footswitch...
1. You must use a shielded cable for the reverb switch. Not necessary for the trem switch. Hoffman sells the special cable used for this...
(http://hoffmanamps.com/MyStore/catalog/images/IMG_6405.jpg)
2. The reverb switch contacts will be open for reverb to be on. The trem switch contacts will be closed for the trem to be on. No big deal but keep that in mind.
You will need to use DPDT switches. One side of each switch will control the reverb or trem switching as usual. The other side of each switch will control the LED switching.
EDIT... This P-H471-LED footswitch from AES already has LEDs and DPDT switches and is big enough for a 9V battery and sells for $19. You would still need to replace the cable with that cable like Hoffman sells. Check out the documents...
https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/footswitch-marshall-two-button-led (https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/footswitch-marshall-two-button-led)
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As always, thanks for pointing me in the right direction guys. I'll see what I can do.