ShortScale.org

okay so i guess im the absolute queen of noobs. my first monarchical act is to start this thread where the nooblings may exercise their noobnessence and those more familiar with pedal building may shed light upon us. this is a thread for every noob who has a bunch of questions but doesn't know where to ask or how. so here are my questions:

1. what is ground, and how do i send stuff to ground. exactly what does a ground look like in a small circuit like a pedal. moreover, what is ground?, speaking strictly physically. what defines a ground, what tells me something can be used as a ground.

2. LEDs. how do they work, what dictates their brightness and what can i use them for. what should i know about them, as well as diodes in general. moreover, in distortion pedals what do we know about LEDs, i've heard a lot about red LEDs, but not so much about blue or green LEDs, or any other color.

3. 3PDT footswitches, how do they work? what are all the terminals for. what does a 3PDT swich look like inside.

4. what are all the wire colors for. i think i recognize that red and black are for positive and negative current respectively (??) but i think i heard something about white wire being for audio? and i still have green and yellow so, does wire color have any specific connotation or is it just like. the builders bookmarks, so to speak.

all hail the noob queen

Okay, these aren't so much guitar questions as they are physics/engineering questions.

LUCKILY FOR YOU I TEACH PHYSICS.

Electric current is simply a flow of electrons jumping along from one atom to the next. However, these electrons need a potential difference (called a voltage) to "push" them along. As in, if I had a charged plate with a Fuckton of electrons on it, they wouldn't go anywhere. However, if you connect a plate with a lack of electrons to it using a wire, the electrons will flow from one charged plate to another. The object you are dumping electricity into is your GROUND.

Usually the ground is designated on batteries as a negative and in circuit diagrams as a triangle or three bars that get smaller as you go down.

Wire color doesn't matter. You can use whatever you like. But certain colors for certain things are good ways to keep track of what is what.

Bare wire will ALWAYS be a ground.

The wikipedia article on LEDs is really good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

ok, so what does a ground usually look like. i think you can use the bottom of a pot as a ground is that right?

A ground has to be connected back to the power supply. Like, one side of a battery or the jack plug. You may ground to the back of a potentiometer, but it still needs to go somewhere.

i see. what else can be used for ground?

In a guitar circuit you connect any grounds to the jack plug so that the ground goes back to the wall through the amp.

cool. can you share a ground, like send 2 or more parts of a circuit to the same ground (like the cold terminal of a pot and idk a capacitor in a low pass filter)

All your grounds connect to become one ground.

awesome. BTW this might be a bit off topic but i was bored and i uhm drew this

and i mean i never really drew any serious schems but since you actually know this stuff, do you think this would actually work. like. nevermind the values. does this look even remotely right.

No, just one look at that battery up top is enough to conclude, and there's other nonsense in there too.

please elaborate

No.

then go be a meanie somewhere else

You should start out with simple circuits and work your way up.

Not being sarcastic, but try hooking up some christmas lights to a switch and a battery to get an idea of how electric currents work.

yeah ive just been reading so much and absorbing so little omg

fetusrobot wrote:yeah ive just been reading so much and absorbing so little omg

Try to find a book on pedal building that begins with novice material and practically graduates to juicy stuff.

I believe in you.

Bloody hell.