How much power does your pedal consume?

[formerMember1]

Hi,
I was just wondering how much current YOUR DIY pedal consumes?
My rangemaster consumes:
16.7uA off and 16.8uA when on.  

I guess that is good.  I tested it with a danalectro vintage power source battery.   I am gonna install an LED and see what resistor i end up using.  A while back, i installed a LED with a 1k resistor in there, just to learn how to do it.  It made my pedal take up 6.78mA when on.  (And yes I do understand i had to higher the resistor)

Another question i got is,
What LED do you use in your pedals?  Are they really efficent?  Where do you get them?

I spoke to R.G. about an Ultra Bright LED, that is really efficent, but can't find any. He said look for high candlelight power or something. I gotta keep on looking, but if anyone can give their opinion on where to get a good quality, high efficent LED, please post.   :wink:

Currently i have 2 high brightness water clear 3mm red LEDs from SMallbear
I like them, but don't know cuz i never compared them with others.

Maybe i should not install a LED in my RM clone and Axis FAce i am bulding soon...

oh yeah, almost forgot,  
Would a 5mm LED be more efficent than 3mm LED, since it is bigger you can put it dimmer and use less power? Or is it because it is bigger that it will need more power to light.

thanks again

[Processaurus]

hi, small bear (smallbearelec.com) has the super brights.  If you have some clip leads and a battery you can try different resistances ( like 1k to 10k) and see what the highest resistance (dimmest light) you can get away with.  Luckily most giggin' situations aren't out in direct sunlight  "AAUGH, IT BURNS!"

I got some blue superbrights from this hong kong seller a couple years ago, I wish remembered who, but those LEDs had a usable amount of light with a 50k series resistor!  You could leave it on for about 3 months straight on a new 9V.

[formerMember1]

sounds efficient!!

SO you mean i could try different value resistances, by just clipping them to the battery without it in a circuit?  I did this, but stopped since i thought the brightness would change when it was hooked up to a pedal.

thanks

[Processaurus]

The brightness will be the same, whether its in your pedal or not.  Imagine a hanging bucket of water with a small hole in the bottom.  A steady amount of water trickles out of it.  Now imagine there is another small hole in the bottom.  Having another hole doesn't change how much water is trickling out of the first hole, it just changes how fast the bucket emptys.  The bucket is like a battery (a source of current), and the holes in the bucket are like your FX circuit and LED (a current load), and the water is like electrical current.

If you're interested in more of how this works, look up "Ohms Law".  If you get how that works you'll understand electricity better than 98% of the population.

[cab42]

See this topic where R.G. wrote the post to end all posts regarding LED-resistors. A classic.

http://diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=30168&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=led+resistor

Regards

Carsten

[formerMember1]

thanks, when i searched that thread didn't come up for some reason, that helped . :wink:

I decided to go with a 80 cent 5mm red water clear, 20 degree viewing angle, 7k -10k mcds, and i just sand the LED as suggested by mark hammer, works great

better then you can buy too, (essentially you are making a high efficient diffused LED :idea: )