LED's inside a amp head, reasons why not?

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chamelious

www.thesunexplodes.com
Yeah so i'm thinking of firing some LED's (battery powered) inside my Peavey 3120 head, jazz it up a bit, theres loads of room in there. Figure i can just double sided tape a few in along with a battery and a switch, sound cool/reasonable/not damaging/impossible??
 
chamelious said:
Yeah so i'm thinking of firing some LED's (battery powered) inside my Peavey 3120 head, jazz it up a bit, theres loads of room in there. Figure i can just double sided tape a few in along with a battery and a switch, sound cool/reasonable/not damaging/impossible??
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The best reason to not do it is because it's fucking cheesy as hell.
 
The actual plan is to get a stencil of my band name and have the led illuminating that through the front grille of an amp. I don't remember ever seeing anyone doing this, and although I'm sure its been done, I don't think its been done enough to become a cliché.
 
chamelious said:
The actual plan is to get a stencil of my band name and have the led illuminating that through the front grille of an amp.
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That's not a bad idea. Showmanship never hurts. Just sticking random lights in there is kinda silly.


lou
 
Instead of batterries, maybe try some of those 12v led set ups they use on motorcycles. Then you could tap into 12 volts somewhere and it would just be part of the amps' workings. Wouldn't need to change batterries.
 
Lt. Bob said:
Instead of batterries, maybe try some of those 12v led set ups they use on motorcycles. Then you could tap into 12 volts somewhere and it would just be part of the amps' workings. Wouldn't need to change batterries.
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I'd be a bit worried about doing this! I'd probably give it a shot if the amp had a fan i could tap into, but there isn't one. so i'm not sure where i'd pull 12v from.
 
chamelious said:
I'd be a bit worried about doing this! I'd probably give it a shot if the amp had a fan i could tap into, but there isn't one. so i'm not sure where i'd pull 12v from.
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I've been considering doing this to one of my speaker cabs and I sorta plan on grabbing a wall wart and hooking it up in there somewhere.
 
chamelious said:
The actual plan is to get a stencil of my band name and have the led illuminating that through the front grille of an amp. I don't remember ever seeing anyone doing this, and although I'm sure its been done, I don't think its been done enough to become a cliché.
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What happens when the band folds (like all bands do)...will you be able to reverse/remove that...or will it be like a tattoo of an ex-girlfriend's name? :D

Why not just tack some Xmas lights around the head.... ;)
 
man, lights are cool.
I've always liked the Matchless illuminated logo ..... and Bad Cats with their illuminated cat eyes ..... or that new Mesa Transatlantic with the blue LEDs inside ....... or Hughes Kettners' amps that have the innards lit up.
There's lots of examples and they all look cool to me.
 
Lt. Bob said:
man, lights are cool.
I've always liked the Matchless illuminated logo ..... and Bad Cats with their illuminated cat eyes ..... or that new Mesa Transatlantic with the blue LEDs inside ....... or Hughes Kettners' amps that have the innards lit up.
There's lots of examples and they all look cool to me.
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Yeah...I agree. I love the Bad Cat amps with the cat eyes! :cool:

I guess it's a quesiton of how the lights are implemented...the wrong way, and it can go from cool to cheesey.
 
The way i'm thinking of doing it will be reversible. I dunno I think its fashionable to claim that custom lighting is "cheesy" or whatever when a lot of the time it looks good.
 
chamelious said:
The way i'm thinking of doing it will be reversible. I dunno I think its fashionable to claim that custom lighting is "cheesy" or whatever when a lot of the time it looks good.
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personally, now I'm an old Hippy, but I love colored lights and I don't care even a little what anyone else thinks.

I have a large collection of lamps and cool lights.
My house looks like Spencers' Gift when I turn everything on!
 
The amp probably has enough power to power a number of LED's. You just need to find out what's available, calculate the resistor and set all these LED's in series if the voltage is high enough. Serial/parallel if you've only got 12 volts or so...

Much cleaner.
 
Lt. Bob said:
personally, now I'm an old Hippy, but I love colored lights and I don't care even a little what anyone else thinks.

I have a large collection of lamps and cool lights.
My house looks like Spencers' Gift when I turn everything on!
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I use small halogen spots throughout my studio...and I found out that I could use colored lighting gels with them, since they each have a small metal clip that holds the glass UV filter in place. I have a few sheets of various gels, so I cut small circles to fit the halogen lights, and now I have stage lighting in my studio! :)
I only use 25W halogen bulbs…so the gels last a real long time!

When my drummer buddy comes over...he won't play unless I turn on the lights for the drum kit. :D

I have a few other “mood” lights in the studio and very often I’ll just use the colored halogens and them when I’m recording, rather than turning on the boring white lights in the room.
 
cyrano said:
The amp probably has enough power to power a number of LED's. You just need to find out what's available, calculate the resistor and set all these LED's in series if the voltage is high enough. Serial/parallel if you've only got 12 volts or so...

Much cleaner.
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Maybe but i'm not an electrician :)
 
Engl does it a lot on their tube heads, to change the color of/accentuate the glow from the tubes:

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This would be easy. As cyrano points out, series/parallel the LED's until you get what you need. LED's work just as well off of AC as they do DC, so I'd just tap into the filament voltage. Three in series means each would get a little more than 2-volts. Robert's your Auntie's husband. Done. ;)
 
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