Learned from a guy of the ESP board. This isn't exactly what I would call cool, alot of you won't even like the effect at all, but it's a simple eye catching mod you can do to your guitar for 5$







This is a fairly simple process and can be done with less then 5 bucks. The tutorial is pertaining to active guitars, with no on/off switch. Don't ask me how to add one because it's a pain in the ass:


what you'll need:

-3mm led's of your color choice: 5mm is a little too big. I recommend getting a batch off of ebay or another led supplier online. I initially used led's from radio shack but they were only about 500mcd (level of brightness) and didn't get the job done so I ordered twenty off of ebay which are 5000mcd which work much better.

-wire

-9 volt battery

-battery harness

-soldering iron and solder (nickel solder is toxic... don't eat it)

-resistors: this can be a little bit tricky to explain if you don't have a basic knowledge of electronics. When you buy led's there is a recommended voltage as well as recommended mA (miliamps). and because I was going to run these off of a 9 volt battery i had to get resistors that had the correct ohm resistance to make sure i didn't fry the leds. If you have no idea what i'm talking about look it up online you're sure to find something.
(here is the basic calculator to find out what rsistors you need ourworld.compuserve.com/h...en/led.htm type in the number you get with the led's to choose the resistor. For example the Led's that i've used are recommended to run around 3.3 volts and around 20mA, so with a 9 volt battery i can run a series of 2 led's using a 120ohm resistor, and again if you don't get what i'm saying do some research)



Here we go:

-First off you need to rip apart the guitar...carefully of course This guitar had EMGs so I just slipped the pickups off of the quick-connect plugs after unscrewing the rings.




-Now you need to create two series of led's and then wire them together to make a complete set for each pickup. Pretty self explanitory. This is the basic design you're going for. The wires are going to run through the body and into the battery or control cavity.




-They will fit in the pickup sockets like so:





-Once you get all four wires into the control cavity you are going to wire it to a second battery separate from the pickup. I was worried about having a switch to turn them on but instead i just wired the led lights' battery the same way the pickup battery is wired, meaning they will turn on when the guitar is plugged in, so basically just copy the way that battery is wired. and then you have light:



They won't effect your pickups at all, the only wiring they share is the ground, so don't worry about retarding everything up.

you need strobes...

i saw these before. they look pretty weak with emgs. now, if we had some duncans, itd be looking hawt........

haha don't even get me started.

You can make them flash and strobe but its gonna take putting alot more stuff for the led's into your control cavity. And sence that's wired to turn on whenever you plug the cord in, the strobing could get annoying so you might want... say an on off switch. And the strobed would drain your guitars battery a bit so maybe adding another batter would be a good idea.

To do that I would recommend running a toggle switch instead of running off the input jack, you'd have to drill an extra whole in your guitar body but this way you can switch them on when you want to. Plus I'm not a 100% sure but running an extra 9v the way your current 9v is wired could fry your leds (i.e. a resistor calculated for 9v but pushing 18v), I'm not sure I haven't tried it yet, I do know that your emgs will get an extra boost of tone from the added power, though. it will add gain and headroom. After 18 volts though, theres no change in pickup output, as 27 volts won't increase parallel output.

to run two nine volts:

EMG 9v(+)-----<====to pickups(+)
EMG 9v(-)--------\. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . /-----to pot(-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . \____input jack(-)---<==
. . . . . . . . . . . . . /. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \--<==to LED's(-)
LED 9v(-)--------/
LED 9v(+)-----<====to LED's(+)

Graph key:
---- Single wire
=== Two wires
---\ Wire at an angle
. . . . Means nothing at all
____ Single wire
--<= Single wire becomes two wires
(+) Positive
(-) Negative

Niccolai said:

lol

A guy makes and sells them on ebay for 15$ + shipping.
They cost about $2.50 to make.

there isnt any issues with like feedback or
anything wrong with grounding?

Nope, the reason you get the squeeling feedback is your guitar pickups interfere with your amp, like when you aim a mic at the pa speaker. The reason you get buzz is because your pickups are natrally loud pickups (EMGs are known for being noiseless).

Since this system doesn't go between your pickups and amp and doesn't involve any modification to your amp and the wires don't even come into contact with your system (except for the ground) theres no possable way it could feedback even if you tried to make it.

The only side effect of the system is it drains your batteries quicker then normal (EMGs you can leave plugged in for a roughly 4 weeks straight day and night before they need to be replaced) this system only cuts battery life down about 4-8 hours off of that 4 weeks depending on the brightness of the LEDs you use.

Generally, each pickup requires about 80 microamps (uA), EQ circuit requirements vary widely but are higher than pickups.

For your reference, a standard 9 volt alkaline battery provides 580 milliAmpHours (mAh) of power. That means that it will provide 580 milliAmps for 1 hour or 1 milliamp for 580 hours. There are 1000 uA per mA. You can figure the approximate battery life of any setup by adding up the individual power requirements, then dividing 580,000 by this total. Here's an example:

1 - EMG-81 = 80 uA
2 - EMG-SV = 220 uA*2 = 440 uA
1 - EXG = 410 uA
--------
Total required = 930 uA

Total life = 580,000 uAh/
930 uA = 623 hours
If you left your guitar plugged in day and night, the battery should still last a month. Under normal playing conditions, you would probably be looking at changing the battery twice a year. Of course, you should treat these numbers conservatively and not try to drain every last uA out. But yea, the lighting system will only shorten that 623 hours by about 8 hours tops.

I should make more tech posts.

I'm alot like Martha Stewart.

more tech posts = more awesome gayness.

i need glowing pickups like ricers need more glowing cars...

Spaldino on a fucking mac... lame said:

hahaha
Luckily, this design won't work on basses.
The system is not perfect Mr. Spalding.



Stay tuned for my next tech article: Making your pickup cavities smoke.

it wont work on basses? my bass has two EMG's... why wouldnt it work?

heh thanks for the response, i think they look pretty gay though

Niccolai said:

just ask ace frehley. i know i would.

Spaldino on a fucking mac... lame said:


Your bass pickups don't have pickup rings. Most bass pickup models don't.

I was going to do this tutorial on my ltdB405 but it won't fit and there not room around the pickup for light.

blue said:

I actually use the Ace Frehley method. The later method anywho.. in the begining he just put smoke bombs under a 'dumy' neck pickup.

Niccolai said:

fuck it... ill just wire the LED's onto the outside of the bass.... i hate guitars.

Niccolai said:

true. im not familiar with the new method, however.

Spaldino on a fucking mac... lame said:

actually, if you used bright enough LEDs (above 5000 mcd) that would be bright enough to shine around the cracks of your Bass pickups, assuming they are soap bars.

well i have an LTD f-205... so yeah... you should already know about the dimensions of the bass :p

emg hz soapbars omg

I almost bought one of the 5 string forest models, but they all had 25" scales.

actually those glowing pickups look pretty cool

Niccolai said:

the bigger frets were kinda hard to get used to after playing smaller scaled bases since i started... but man... that bass rules. too bad the electronics crapped out on me... which i still have to take a look at and get to the bottom of... i've been too enveloped by my car and modifying that... man my car rules. so loud now.

I was going to buy a warwick corvette proline 5, and after playing it side by side with an LTD I noticed how big the scale was and how thick the neck was. It came down to the ESP B405 (because of the 34 scale) and Ibanez SR505 (because of the paper thin neck) But all of the reviews on the ibanez said the necks warped, so I bought the ESP with EMG 40-DC/P5 active pickups andEMG B64 active EQ. I may make these pickups glow after all.



Lots of times with LTDs (and imports in general) there are problems with electronics and specifically the wiring, shouldn't be to hard to fix.