Aguilar blue lights - Too Bright!

[Jeff Scott]

I can't stand the sight of blue LEDs and I won't own anything that has them. They become popular only because they were unavailable on the market for so long. Now blue LEDs are an affectation.

Get hip, manufacturers, and tune in to what users want. If the LEDs are too bright, instead of telling users that they'll love the bright lights if they ever have to play a sunny gig, just put a day/night dimmer button on the back of the amp to tone them down.

And get with the 21st Century. Multi-color LEDs are available so design a circuit that allows the user to choose the colors he wants on his amp. Put some extra buttons on the back of the amp to allow the user to configure his own colors.

And don't tell us that things have to be this way because you've designed a constant current switching circuit. So what if you're using a constant current switching circuit. The display LEDs don't have to be part of the control circuit. Think outside of the box.

Talk about wretched excess?

I don't want any extra crap on my amp just to change/customise LEDs... It's not a Christmas tree... No offence...
Some people think less is more, less points of potential failure...

Count me in among those wise souls!

 

[el murdoque]

Was this 'problem' fixed in the near past? I bought my Tonehammer in summer and the LEDs are not that bright IMO.
I've played a Genz Benz microamp that would light up the room, but my aggie is fine.

If it was too bright for me, i'd put some black or silver electrical tape on the plastic covering ant cut it in shape, so the light coming straight out was blocked, but the corona would still be seen.

 

[Pbassred]

My Littlemark tube800 has a brown front and yellow writing - very difficult to read. I found a light-pipe (clear plastic which uses the physics of a prism to bend/direct light). I stuck it on and its pointed across the face of the amp.

Less dazzling and it lights the controls a bit. Unfortunately blue doesn't illuminate yellow. I wish it was orange

 

[2string1]

You guys that hate blue lights must really hate the look of the GK Fusion 800....

 

[SolarMan]

I'm going with the Ampeg PF-350 to pair up with my aggie DB112NT (deal) - simply because I prefer the look of that soft purple ampeg glow...

(And they Both kill through that speaker)

 

[Vince Klortho]

...

A smarter design would put the footswitch LED under the control of the logic circuit without actually being a part of the logic control circuit. That way, when the LED gets thrashed under the boot, the indicator lamp fails to work but the switching logic in the amp keeps on working, and the user can finish the gig. (It's better to lose an LED lamp than to lose a whole amp.)

If anything, this sort of thing teaches us a lesson in intelligent design. It's a bad idea to put logic circuitry in an interface where it should be expected to fail. I think that in the case I'm describing, the design engineer made a critical error by failing to think things through. Maybe he was a smart EE who wasn't a musician, and he just didn't understand why it would be a bad idea to run the amp's control logic through a footswitch LED. In cases like this, it pays to have people who actually use this type of gear on the design team, or to at least beta-test the design with real musicians.

I disagree. I do not think that is an inherently bad design decision. Since the problem arose from a mashed LED then an easier and simpler way to deal with it would be to make it impossible to mash the LED. That's a mechanical design issue and a fairly simple one to deal with.

 

[WoodyG3]

Solution: