First build in progress, LED question

[Antero]

Parts came in today, and I jumped right to it!  First lesson learned: place the components in the box before you start drilling shit.  *facepalm*  Second lesson: solder makes fumes!   *facepalm twice*  But It's coming along!  Whee!

What I'm building right now is a true bypass and feedback loop, based on this diagram from Experimentalists Anonymous. 



Most everything's going swimmingly, I think, but there are two questions.

1!  It's a pretty tight fit in here!  If wires touch the battery, would it ground them and screw everything up, or is the battery safe to touch?

2!  I have two LEDs instead of a G/R LED... what would I change to make them work?

Thanks! 

[cakeworks]

The battery thing depends on if it's insulated by foam or not (thats how i hold mine in place) but I wouldn't risk it, insulate any naked wire you're worried about with ellectrical tape or something.

for the led question, 2 leds should be fine, have the red (positive wire) going to the positive (long) connection for the led, do the same for the green wire (also positive so it also goes to the long wire on the led) then just connect both the negative (short) prongs of the led's to the same negative (black) wire. how you do this doesnt matter as long as they are both touching it.

Does that sound right?

[Antero]

Thanks!  That does indeed sound right.

BACK TO THE SOLDER

[Antero]

Completed!  But, alas, nothing.  Not even a signal coming through    Not surprised, though, because it looks like a f*cking rat's nest in there.  I'm going to tear out the battery/LED stuff tomorrow, try setting it up without and see what happens.  I'm thinking I just got something crossed due to my absolute lack of skills... probably something grounding where it shouldn't be, or maybe I just screwed up and soldered something to the wrong place entirely.  A lot of wires in there.   

[EDIT] - Pulled out the battery, took off the cover.  The feedback loop works, but in testing I realized that I was sent a non-momentary DPDT instead of a momentary on accident (doh).  The loop-on mode works.  Bypassed, though, bypasses... well... everything.  No sound at all.  Hmm.

[Antero]

I realized that I can probably chalk up the failure to my absolute lack of solder skills - I think about half the joints on here are cold, and acting more as glue than solder.  *facepalm*

I'll try again this weekend.

[jeroen_verbeeck]

You'll get there!
I think it's pretty brave of you to try something with a lot of wires like this for a first build.
I used to hate wiring, can't stand rats nests. But once you see the logic behind it, it's pretty straight forward.
Once you're used to this, the hardest part is over and you can go ahead and solder some components to a board.

[Antero]

I think it's pretty brave of you to try something with a lot of wires like this for a first build.

Heh!  I'd been thinking to myself, "It's just a box of switches and wires, how hard can it be?"     The answer seems to be "Actually, quite a bit."

Side comment: Huh, there's a button to do this on the reply panel.I guess that's for the irritating folks who cApItAlIzE lIkE tHiS.