rockthe40 Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 alright, last night i wired my strawberry ice switch up to my les paul output jack and had no results so i thought ok, the PUPs arent high enough output. but tonight i bought a multimeter and checked em out. they both read an even 8.0 ohms. i wired it up again, no results. i even tried it on my tele wired in parallel which reads like 17 ohms (8.0 on each PUP though so i tried that too)! so im guessing im now wiring it right as that would be the only thing i could be doing wrong (ive triple check and quadruple checked the wiring on the switches and its all right). arent i supposed to just attach the ground on the switch to the output ground and hot off of the diodes to the hot on the jack, just to test it out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 lol should i apologize for making the 1000th post about this thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 What diodes did you use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 i ordered 10 bat46's and 10 bat41's from mouser both rated 150mA 100 volt... i guess all that is too high, right? there arent any lower values from mouser though. where can i find the right ones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclej Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 hey man, i didn't mean to ignore your last pm yesterday... i just got swamped. actually the bat41's and 46's will both work so i've got to believe that it's your switch or the way the switch is wired..try this..take two of the diodes and twist the leads together with each one facing a different direction..i.e. pos to neg and neg to pos. and then just solder them directly to the output jack..one lead to pos and one to neg. turn your treble up a good bit on your amp and crank the volume up and give it a try. if it works that way then there's something else going on with your wiring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 alright, ill give that a try, but i saw on your site that i should use 0.3-0.4V at 1mA diodes and mine are 100 volt at 150mA... isnt that a problem? oh yea, its cool about that pm.. happens to me sometimes too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 still didnt work. tried all kinds of eq settings with the treble up and the clean channel as high as my litlte 15w practice amp will go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclej Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 well i'm confused now. the bat41 is the diode that i use. so if you're sure that you have those then they'd be rated the same as mine. when i first started experimenting i ordered 6 or 7 different diodes and some didn't work. it's been a while though so i couldn't tell you which ones. but if you have the bat41's and you're sure that the black ring around one end of each one is facing in the opposite direction when you tie them together and you've wired one lead to the pos and one to the neg of the jack and it still doesn't work then i'm lost. it could be the pups or the amp or you could have made diodenicus, the god of overdrive mad. if you have a digital camera you might take a pic of it all and post it so we can see what's up. other than that i don't know what to do. sorry man. i wish i could be more help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 the jackthe jack and switch wiredthe switch wiring sorry for the bad pics.. my camera is real shitty. thats the closest i can get it without the thing going all out of focus. on the switch, the brown wire is the ground and the blue is the hot. on the jack both the ground and hot are in heatshrink tube so its hard to see that they are both wired right. hope yall can make somethin out of this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truerussian558 Posted January 30, 2005 Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 Correct me if i'm wrong, but dont diodes only start alowing current through once it reaches .7 volts or so, which quite a bit bigger then what the pickups output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 well, i dont believe you right on that, but you could be as i dont half know what im talking about. all these other guys are getting this thing to work, but not me so i dont know what the problem is. i turn my multimeter on ohms and check the connections to make sure the diodes arent messed up and current is passing through. ive also read everywhere that the PUPs must be putting out atleast 8k ohms which the PUPs on both my guitars do :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted January 30, 2005 Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 Andrey, you're right if we're talking silicon signal diodes, but Germanium diodes and Schottky diodes have a lower forward voltage. Ge clips at about .35v and some Schottkys as low as .25v. The diodes he's using are rated at the lowest Vf I've ever been able to find, so even fairly mild pickups should at least clip on the attack. RT40, I'm at a loss -everything looks right, best i can tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Vai Posted January 30, 2005 Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 Andrey, you're right if we're talking silicon signal diodes, but Germanium diodes and Schottky diodes have a lower forward voltage. Ge clips at about .35v and some Schottkys as low as .25v. The diodes he's using are rated at the lowest Vf I've ever been able to find, so even fairly mild pickups should at least clip on the attack. RT40, I'm at a loss -everything looks right, best i can tell. ← Could you give me a link to a specific diode to buy? I'll probably be using it with single coils. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 just go to mouser.com and search for bat46... itll bring up those and the bat41 (it did for me anyway) and those are the 2 kinds you can use Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted January 30, 2005 Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 Mouser has 'em: http://www.mouser.com/access/?pn=511-BAT41 You guys need to keep in mind that unless you're running something really hot (like an Invader), this is a fairly subtle effect. It's not a tubescreamer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 lovekraft, thats exactly what im looking for, a little subtle overdrive. i play lots of reggae and ska so it would be real useful for me to switch between my clean and OD right there on my guitar now im going to wire it in some different places to see if theres any effect Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 well wired it up right off of the wiper of the vol pot where the circuit finishes and still didnt work and i put the wire going to the jack on the wire of the first diode with the 2 diodes connecting before that as pictured in unclej's diagram (didnt think it would matter either way but had to give it a try). so i drew you guys up a diagram of exactly what it looks like since the pics are hard to see Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Vai Posted January 30, 2005 Report Share Posted January 30, 2005 Mouser has 'em: http://www.mouser.com/access/?pn=511-BAT41 You guys need to keep in mind that unless you're running something really hot (like an Invader), this is a fairly subtle effect. It's not a tubescreamer. ← So if I wanted more distortion, should I put a preamp before the diode or after it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted January 31, 2005 Report Share Posted January 31, 2005 Put a preamp before the diodes for more distortion - that's basically all the MXR Distortion + and the DOD OD250/YJM308 are (except they use silicon diodes for a higher output). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Vai Posted January 31, 2005 Report Share Posted January 31, 2005 Put a preamp before the diodes for more distortion - that's basically all the MXR Distortion + and the DOD OD250/YJM308 are (except they use silicon diodes for a higher output). ← Yeah, I guess I'll just build one of those. Which one is your favorite (the sound)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted January 31, 2005 Report Share Posted January 31, 2005 If you're going to use diodes and an opamp, do yourself a favor and put them in the feedback loop, not on the output - the Runoff Groove Tube Reamer is probably the simplest example, but the Fulldrive, Sparkle Drive and all the Tube Screamer variants use that configuration. They simply sound so much smoother (and more amp-like) to me. As always, YMMV! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockthe40 Posted January 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2005 well as i shouldve assumed from the time it wouldnt work, my pickups dont have high enough output. last night my friend brought over this kids fat strat and the bridge humbucker read 10k so i tried it out and it works. so thanks to everyone who helped out one last question though, whats meant by "ground loop"? i think its where individual wires are grounded on different spots instead of one central grounded spot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truerussian558 Posted February 1, 2005 Report Share Posted February 1, 2005 (edited) I beleive its when one component (ment to go to ground) is grounded across several paths, instead of one. (for instance across a wire and the chasis/shield) Edited February 1, 2005 by truerussian558 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebun Posted November 17, 2005 Report Share Posted November 17, 2005 does a LED work in place of a diode for this appliation and if so what kind? and since therea re quite a few ratings to look at what makes the BAT41 the right choice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted November 17, 2005 Report Share Posted November 17, 2005 does a LED work in place of a diode for this appliation and if so what kind?← No. and since therea re quite a few ratings to look at what makes the BAT41 the right choice?Vf (forward voltage) - lower is better, since this is the point at which the diode will clip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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