Guitar Hero LED Mod

Step 9 Wire it up - part 2

After testing out the original wiring plan we ran into the problem of there being too many points of failure. We were requiring that both legs of the LEDs be pushed onto the copper pads for the connection to be made. To fix this, one leg was instead wired to the pad below it. One of these is highlighted in the first photo, but the same thing was done to all of the LEDs.

In addition, the copper tape that the LED was still being pushed onto was too flat on the surface of the board. To create a very rough springiness we peeled up one side of the tape and crumpled it a bit or folded it under itself to make it a little thicker. It's crude and not a long-term solution, but it worked for the first run.

Comments

[thirtyfivefox]

Hey i'm thinking that it might have been easier to board mount the leds and just relay the lighting off the boards buttons... can you think of any reason why this wouldn't work?  also do you notice any dimming of the buttons when multiples are held? since they are all on the same power supply?  Perhaps if its too noticeable you could up the battery and just use resistors in line... that way there is more voltage available for when two or three batteries are pressed.

[mhagen41]

this is awesome! thanks! do you have any pictures of the battery that you hooked this up to?? im just wondering because i dont know exactly how to wire it up and what battery to use thanks

[toastytoast10]

well it seems to me that the top end of the wire, of this picture where the circuit board is on top would be the positive end, so attach that wire to the positive end of the 9volt. then the bottom would be then negative end, so attach it to the bottom wire to the negative end of the battery. if this doesn't work and you are sure you have done every thing else right, then switch the wires. It should work then

[VTStevenVT]

Do you have to worry about adding resistors to a 9v battery? This may be a dumb question as I know absolutely nothing about electronics, but I did blow out the LED's I used on my last attempt at an LED project.

[Slagr]

you will fry the LEDs if you run them on too high of voltage. My LEDs, 3.3-3.6 V, heated up and dimmed ominously when I ran 4.5 V (3 AAs) through them, and I'd imagine 9V would be catastrophic.

[Arbitror]

They go super bright for 1 second, then slowly dim to nothing, they it emits smoke, and sometimes explodes in two.

[zalcior]

Im not sure, use a resistor calculator with the voltage needed of the LEDs Running PARALLEL and for power source use 9v.