low end fuzz Posted July 24, 2006 Report Share Posted July 24, 2006 is anyone familliar with these stores? theyre basically good for **** (pardon my canadian french) but when i was looking through their switches and what not, they got a lot of interesting toggles and switches like LED on/offs and the tinyiest mini switches etc. my question is are they usable? is a switch just a piece of metal that directs the current another way or does it have to have enogh K's(?) (like 250k 500k) in order to move this kinda power? ;all my pots are usually 500k these switches ARE cheap but thats the point thanx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 24, 2006 Report Share Posted July 24, 2006 Radio Shack is THE electronic hobbyist suppler in the USA. I've used pretty much all their stuff and its all pretty good. Not great, but the price is right. Circuit City in the US is like Best Buy, etc. They don't sell switches, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donbenjy Posted July 24, 2006 Report Share Posted July 24, 2006 erm...yeah a switch is just a peices of metal that moves... umm, I guess you don't actually know how a pot works then. And the Power in a guitar is very very tiny anyway. Pots are short for potentionmeter which is basica;ly 2 resistors in series, with a point coming from inbetween. By moving the pot, you determine how the energy (or power) is divided. A switch essentially has infinite "k"s (k just means kilo btw, the units of resistance are ohms, or kilo-ohms) to the side it isn't switched to, as it is completely isolated from that part when switched one way. The switches should work fine. They WILL have a maximum power rating, but power is current times voltage, and in a guitar, both are miniscule! Anything like an LED switch will cause your guitar to most probably stop working, as they need far too much power to light in terms of a pickup and they'll use up all the current plus more...so not much point in using them. Further more, if they did work (for example if you used active pickups) they would wreck your tone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 24, 2006 Report Share Posted July 24, 2006 Surely you wouldn't use an LED switch directly in the signal path on ANY circuit. Thats just asking for trouble unless the circuit is specifically designed for it. You just want the LED between V+ and ground. You would need a DPDT switch so you could isolate the guitar signal path from the LED and its battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donbenjy Posted July 24, 2006 Report Share Posted July 24, 2006 well yeah, but you wouldn't put a 9v battery in a guitar just for an LED. I've never actually looked at one before though, do they have seperate lugs for power then? I assumed they drew current from the circuit...but that'd be abit stupid i guess... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 25, 2006 Report Share Posted July 25, 2006 You could always run it on a single AAA ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crafty Posted July 25, 2006 Report Share Posted July 25, 2006 well yeah, but you wouldn't put a 9v battery in a guitar just for an LED. I've never actually looked at one before though, do they have seperate lugs for power then? I assumed they drew current from the circuit...but that'd be abit stupid i guess... Wha...? Yamaha uses a 9v battery in one of their guitars just to light up an LED. It's not as efficient as just a couple of penlight 1.5 cells, but most musicians are more likely to have 9v's laying around. RadioShack is a good place to get parts if you're in a pinch, but their selection isn't the greatest. Especially since now they're going to start phasing out actual electronic parts from the retail stores. I usually order my stuff through Mouser or Jameco. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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