billm90

Thanks for all that info Pete. I feel like I am just starting to get a graspe on all this. I should have done this to an acoustic. Now I am wondering if piezo's would sense EMI?

I took it apart last night and played with the EMI. PSW is spot on of course. there may not be much I can do to it. The sequencer makes the noise, and the led's alone make the noise (removed from the guitar). The on/off is the trigger. I tried it on tons of pickups (shielded les paul, emg active, single coils). put the led board against a few of my other guitars. nothing changed of course. Put the pickup against the driver with the LED board sitting a guitar away, EMI in that. I read a bunch on the internet, tried a few goofy things , nothing worked. Made a foil shield over the top of another guitar, grounded it, put the leds against it. tried a metal plate. I have a dc motor I tried to sheild from. Wrapped a pickup in foil shield tape completly just to see what would happen... nothing. Removed all the shielding I put in the guitar, nothing changed. Found a web page where some guy used mu metal on a old record player to silence the motor noise from the needle pickup. I found that interesting. He put the mu metal on the turntable, the record would sit on top of it. I think he used some fabric inbetween to further block EMI. Found some page where a guy tried to make an EMI shield for a computer sound card. he used 2 layers of metal mesh screen, with anti-static plastic packaging material inbetween. he said his noise loss was minimal. Found tons of pages on shielding computers from EMI (metal plates/paint), and I found some pages used RF and EMI kind of like the same thing. I know RF noise, the stereo in my old vette had an amp in each speaker, and I would pickup one someone by my house using a CB radio when I drove up my street in the front passengerside speaker. this would probably be a waste of time, but what if the led plate was made of metal/copper/mu metal whatever. Would shielding the + and - on the led's wiring do anything? Like a pickup semi coaxial wire. what if I had a small amount of voltage going to the leds at all times, to make them always kind of dim? would this reduce any noise from the switching? And something else I have been wondering. what would happen if I crossed the grounds on the LED driver and the Amp ground? Currently they are two totally seperate circuits. I have seen lots of reference to using copper tape to block EMI. PSW has always been on top of this. Are these web pages just crossing RF and EMI terms as they please? For the last 24 hours or so, all I have been thinking about is how to sheild EMI.

I did a quick look around on the net, and found two methods that probably wont apply to what we have going on with EMI. Decoupling capacitor? and a choke? Do you have any idea about these methods. I am in unknown waters with the electronics now.

I have the grounds completly seperate. When I get a free sec here at work I am going to google EMI shielding. Thanks for the comments guys. I am kind of proud of how it turned out. I have to say it looks much better in person, you can see the holigram change, and the reflection of the acrylic top. Half way through, while it was very ugly looking, I have to say I had a few moments when I questioned what I was doing. I am glad I took it apart half way through, modified it (added more lights), and finished it.

Hahaha, yes you warned me about the noise... I will try my best to figure it out. Thanks for the info on the foil. Glad I am done going in that direction. I think all radio waves have been blocked. I have a few little things I want to try out. hopefully somehting cool happens. It kind of reminds me of spinal tab, nigels wireless. as for the sustainer... I picked up some coil wire. I was thinking about trying it. I just dont know what guitar to do it on. I have another strat I was going to piece back into an electric (was nylon with fishman bridge but it breaks strings) That is the only one I can access the coils on. would a 1 watt amp make a good driver? I have read over some of the sustainer threads, but there are a few of them and they are monster huge.

Thanks Pete. yes I do get noise, and tried my hardest to block it. I put it all together, and played it. I got a ticking sound that changes based on what set of light patterns are set. However I cannot hear it when playing. I tore it down and tried to shelid everything. I have foil tape over the electronics, the pickup pocket, and I even tried to foil the back of the led panel using tape to insulate. I put a shielded pickup in it, and tried to foil the bottom of it too. The noise still comes through. I am playing through a digital effects unit, and the tick is opeining the noise gate. So when just sitting there with the guitar muted, you can hear the tick and it openes the noise gate, as soon as I play a chord, no audible tick. I sat down with the pickup unscrewed from the guitar, if I move it 2 inches up abover the body, the tick is gone. If I set the pickup on top "anywhere" there are leds, it picks up the tick. However, if I set it on the neck, lined up flush with the edge, the noise is gone. I dont really know how to get rid of it. Any ideas?

here are some vids. they are pretty bad... never shot vid with my picture cam before.

here is what it looks like as of now

I will defently put up a vid, even if I have to link it to myspace or something. I am currently putting clear coat over the silver paint. then I have a few more hurdles. The part I am dreading. the volume pot. I have the acrylic plate cut out, I would have to line everything up and see if I think I can do it. electronics space is pretty used up, so I may need to put one more cut into the body for a pot. Basically the pot needs to sit recessed into the newly routed body, a hole cut through the light plate, and a hole through the acrylic. they all have to line up perfectly. This is where I feel mistakes will be made.

Something worth bringing up. I have from 180-200ish leds. I have not counted yet for sure. I used 250ish, but removed some from the first go round and they have glue on them, so they are sitting out. I read an article that ace has 700 halogen bulbs.... I could not imagine trying to set that up. I wish I had more... I could build another light plate later I guess. I think I will get some prewired led strips, and try that if I think I need more some day. maybe the 3mm size.

This is the controller http://www.bakatronics.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=693 here is the so called amplifier/ or output driver as I should have called it http://www.bakatronics.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=451 And I did run the led's in parallel. Mainly did it because it was quick to wire. but as you pointed out, if one dies, I still have the rest. For about 30 seconds I thought about running less resistors, after a first attempt at wirring failed. well it worked, it just took way too long. so I took it apart and added extra leds, and then set them all in uniform, then wired them up as fast as I could. The old saying "learn as you go" defently applied here.

Why are you soldering a resistor to each LED. One current limiting resistor per LED string would be fine, no? It can be done several different ways. 1 resistor per 3 leds. etc... The main issue. I have is I got the led's that came with the resitor to knock it down from 12v. By putting on on each led I was able to tie the resitor wires along a line for the positive. On the negative I stripped back a section of wire and used 1 strand across the whole negative, wrapping it around each led - pole. I tried using less resitors at first, and the led's were real dull, so I decided enough messing around and did one per led. I will post a pic later. As for the electronics controlling this. I am using an IC chip. I am unsure what one it is. I got it in a hobby kit. It works off pressing a momentary button. each press plays the sequence faster. holding it changes the sequence. It runs off a 9v. this runs in to a amplifier for lack of a better term. the chip tells the amp when to allow a connection on the negative and allows the external power of 12 to be triggered. It is a very small set of citcuits, so it makes me happy as far as fitting it in the guitar. I had to do a few drill press cuts into to get the stuff to sit flush. I am painting the body for a few days, then I will assemble it. Hopefully I can figure out how to get a vid up.

So I added extra led's to it. it probably has 220-240 leds. soldered in that many resitors. the wirring was a nightmare but I got through it. powered it up last night and it works. flashes in sequence. it is really bright. with the house lights off, it made me feel sick. it basically is like having a strobe light on it. I cut out an area in the back of the guitar for the batteries. 8 AA's for 12volts. I have some clean up work to do on the body, then I have to get the wirring into the guitar, a few odds and ends and I will be done. Thank god!

That's why he is the captain. Who's making it?

I just dug this vid up http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/12/vox-v251-guitar.html The only shot of the fret I can find this far

wow, that looks fun, lot of thing to play around with. I was thinking segemneted frets a while back, I just done know how to make one that will get me high milage. Then I thought of putting 2 recesed screws type things in the fretboard between the frets, to complete the circuit. given it was built so the strings would not get caught on them. This could help deal with bends, as it would shut off the organ tone when you bent past the screw. but then you may trigger the next strings screw. I also thought I may want a noise gate type thing so the organ does not sound unless it is strum. Now I can see where a ton of on/off switch options come into play. as for synth, I have a vg-88. Not as much fun as trying to make something silly like a toy organ guitar. lol Speaking of which, what would happen if you ran the organs speaker output into an amp? boom?

Maybe metal thimbles...or, chop the top off and replace the finder tips Tony Iommi style! As a teenager I had an idea of adding a small casio keyboard type thing below the picking part of the strings as a "surf guitar" so I could play the cheesy organ parts in the middle 8's. Of course, you could do something like the GuitarOrgan and segment and wire each fret to trigger an internal organ! pete The fret trigger was the plan, I have a beatdown acoustic it will go in (with electric pickups). Pretty much ike how they do the lighted led fret markers triggered by the frets. Besides wirring issues. I can see how a simple full bar chord of 6 notes, will get me 9 notes on the organ/keyboard. which could get annoying. lead playing on one string, where you leave your pointed finger in place, and use the other 3 fingers. That will have a constant tone playing. Some of these would be issues, some could be the very thing that make it cool. I guess one would have to learn a new way to play. These are the thing I sit and think through. At first I thought just low organ tones on the E and A strings, then I thought why limit myself. I could install 6 switches to shut down each string. ahhh... what a mess.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7cc39b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ I built this LP copy into an electric nylon string guitar. I made my own saddle. It has and artec piezo strip under the saddle. The artec preamp, which is basically the 1/4 jack. No controls. Then I took popsicle stick and made a really skinny bridge, Cut 6 piezos into individual piezo's and epozied those to the popsicle stick. So I have a plastic bridge basically. If it were electric strings... I could put in a magnetic pickup. I have a jazzmaster replica body and neck. I am building the parts for it to turn into a neck/bridge humbucker, with an ebony archtop bridge converted to flat top, and I will install diY piezo's into the center of it. I have done it before and it works... Not like a pro setup, but it works.

hmm... I was going to say if you bought a neck, neck through would be the easier route. you just need sides. I have been working on an acoustic 10 string (nylon) for a long while. I am getting the idea I should just build one out of cheap materials, and learn that way, so I dont destroy good wood. Which is what I am doing now. I would think the glue on neck would be the most difficult if you are new to this. Being once it is set, that is all you have to work with. the rest will have to be adjusted with the bridge. I guess you could run some fishing line on it to get an idea of your neck angle to bridge height... before glueing I got a guitar on ebay, it was like 25+ years old. I dont even know if it was the right neck. it was really off. With the bolt on neck I could sand it down and get it to the right height and Angle rather easy. Sadly I dont have the right answer, only repair work I have done. I would think neck through would get you all lined up for neck to bridge issues. but if the neck bends, or something is wrong, you have to live with it. Or cut it off and convert ot bolt on or glue in. lol A bolt on is pretty simple. something happens you remove repiar/replace it. Glue in can be difficult once locked in. but if you get it right, I suppose you could steam it back out if you needed to repair it.

So what if you had little finger condoms, that had a piece of fret attached on each tip. Basically you will have 4 slides, free to do as you please. jack up your string action, or remove the frets. Now currious to what this would soundlike on an aluminum fretless-fretboard. (oxi-moron there) Usually when I dream up something do-able. (Non bent neck and strings), I try to make it happen. I Find someone else made it happen, and still try anyways. I am working on making a toy keyboard (because they are simple) play as I fret a note. Got the idea when I came across that midi jam bass http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/1998/Jam-Bass.html , which is midi buttons on the back of the neck that enable you to play bass notes, or trigger whatever have you with your thumb. I thought I had the electrical worked out in my head, and then I lost it. I should write things down. I also wanted to put 2 bass strings on the back of my guitar neck. basically slightly recessed, with a fret board so I could thumb tap bass notes. can I play this. No idea. lol

Are you going to build or buy a neck?

http://www.torresengineering.com/1megpot.html here is a little info that may help out. on going to higher values

Tone pots.... I dont even know what they are for. They make things sound like mud for me. However I do have rack mounts and amps with EQ, and I spend a lot of time playing with it there. I can see turning it down on a neck pickup for some jazz.... other wise I dont really like the sound. What is the history of the tone pot? were they used to taylor a sound on older amps or something? I have been trying to get a SRV tone on my strats... I cant. I have read what he does tone at X, volume rolled off. whatever.... And I am mainly a heavy distorion player anyhow. so tone on heavy distortion, not a good mix IMHO.

If anyone out there is still interested. I got the holigram sticker on the LED plate. Leds are installed. After getting this far... I think mine will look like the kid brother of aces guitar... It looks like 'maybe' aces guitar has 3mm leds. I have 5mm. I am still not sure. His Led's look to be spaced about 1/2" apart. Mine are about 1" apart. It also looks like maybe someone built up the sides of his guitar instead of routing out the inside. Meaning: It looks like his face plate is the entire size of a LP top. And sides were added to give the face plate depth. This means his guitar is actually bigger then a LP? I will continue on till finished anyways, and I can always change it once it works. Face plate will be removable. I can make another one. I started wiring it last night. This Sucks!!! lol. I think it will take me a week. I spent a lot of time on it last night and learned a few things. Screwed up a bit too. This work kills my back sitting there tring to solder beween all the leads for hours. I also dont feel very relaxed when doing tons of tedious work like this. Every little thing bothers me 100x more. I tried using a coil of enamel coated wire to link everything up. I would twist one loop around each led lead. When I soldered it, I did not get a connection like a pickup coil would do. I tried 2 gauges, gave up. I grabbed some cheesey speaker wire and started using that. I would melt off the insulation and solder it in one long strip. this took an hour to do the grounds on one section. (there are 5 sections) I could do this with small pieces of wire pre cut and trimmed... but then I would have to solder on 2 leads to each led lead... I think I would come out to the same hour per section of time. I had a section done and powered it up, it was dim... So I tore it out. On the positive lead I have to solder on a resistor to each led now. I am going to be running this at 12-15v with 8-10 A batteries. If I did add LED's every half inch, the wirring would be that much more harder.... And I would have to start over with the face plate. I need to figure out a circuit board for the top if I ever do this again. I probably should have done this first. live and learn.

Maybe... I guess we will find out. The body route is not as deep as the neck pocket. If there are any flex issues, I have an idea for that as well.