Blinded by the lights ...

[Guest FretNoMore]

These blue diodes on newer effects pedals ... am I the only one getting blinded?
They are too bright for me. Is there a better solution than putting sticky tape over them?

[KingBollock]

Replace them? Or, if you're not that way inclined, you could get some red gel paper or acetate, or even sweet wrapper, cut out a little circle of it and stick it over the LED (with some double sided sticky tape) turning it purple and making it less bright.

Edited May 22, 2013 by KingBollock

[tonyquipment]

Blu tack.

[Guest FretNoMore]

Good ideas guys, thanks!

[rmorris]

Yeah - Blue leds have been flavour of the month for a few years now it seems. I have one on a mic and it is way too bright. I tried masking tape over it. Now have untidy looking microphone with a blue light that is still too bright !

[Bolo]

I use a strip of the sticky velcro that keeps the underside stuck to the pedalboard.

[uncle psychosis]

If you're really, really careful you can scuff them a bit with sandpaper to diffuse the light a bit more.

Personally I'd just use a small lump of blutack. You don't need much and its completely reversible if you come to sell.

[OzMike]

The sandpaper scuffing approach is the one I use in my pedals - superbright LEDs definitely need some kind of 'work' like this as their diffusion angle is pretty low.

[MoonBassAlpha]

Blue LEDs are quite bad for your eyes too - there's loads on the net about it e.g. : [url="http://ledsmagazine.com/news/7/11/13"]http://ledsmagazine.com/news/7/11/13[/url]

cellular oxydative stress anyone?

[TG Flatline]

I use lenses on my pedals so you can have a bright LED without the glare. They light the whole lens too, so you don't get the same narrow-viewing-angle problem either. Quite handy really!