electrosonic wrote:LED lights up when activating the pedal, but fades away after few seconds...any advices about this issue
Maybe someone with more knowledge can suggest how to mod so the LED stays on or off like a regular pedal.
If it is power by DC, does it work normally? (Never tried on mine because it uses a 1/8" mini jack for power)
(Skip to the end if you want to know how to mod it so the LED behaves like a normal pedal, but here's the long version.)
I just picked up one of these from eBay for super cheap ($70 USD) that was described as broken because it had this "issue". I knew better and got a crazy deal because of it :) Both of the 1/8" jacks were broken as well, which is pretty common with these, but otherwise it's working perfectly.
These are a pretty close replacement for the 1/8" jacks:
http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=1152
They're PCB mount instead of solder lugs, so you have to bend the pins over to form a hook to solder the wires to, but otherwise they're identical. I would have replaced it with a standard DC jack, but the fit is incredibly tight and it would have required some hacking that I didn't want to do. Plus I have a couple of 1/8"-to-barrel-plug adapters from my 1-Spot, so it wasn't a problem to use the original jack.
Anyway: the way it's supposed to work is that when it's on battery power, the LED fades out after a second to preserve battery life, as someone said earlier. When the DC jack is plugged in, the LED stays on while the effect is on.
Here's a photo of the original DC jack wiring:
The trick is that the DC jack is doubly switched, but in a nonstandard way. The shield switch is a "make" connection, so when DC power is plugged in, the green wire on the left is connected to ground. When it's unplugged, this connection is broken. The tip switch a "break" connection, like a standard DC jack, so the 9V battery is disconnected from the circuit if external power is used. When the green wire is connected to ground, the LED stays on when the effect is on. When the green wire is not connected to ground, the LED fades out after a second when the effect is turned on.
Problem is, the Cliff jacks aren't available in this configuration anymore, so it's impossible to find an exact replacement. The Small Bear ones are switched, but they're both "break" connections, so this original functionality can't be preserved. Good thing the original functionality is confusing and unnecessary. So when wiring a replacement jack, or just modding an original one so the LED stays on, all you have to do is
connect the green wire to the lug on the right instead of the lug on the left.