
If there is no change in the reading either way you switch the leads around, either your
diode checker doesn’t have the juice to even slightly illuminate the LED, its battery is
low, or the LED is toast. Toss any bad item away and get a new one, or put in new
batteries, as the situation dictates.
If your diode check function just can’t even get a glimmer out of the LED, there is one
other method that you can use to test your LEDs. If you have a breadboard, you can
mount the LED on the breadboard, use a 6K8 current limiting resistor (the standard Klee
value) and apply either 15V or 12V, depending on what power supply you intend to use.
Figure 3-5: An LED Test
Now, first of all, note the value of the 6K8 current limiting resistor. You may think that
is a pretty high value for an LED. In practice, many standard LEDs actually attain a very
respectable brightness with that value. The recommended high efficiency LEDs certainly
perform very well, also. If you should decide that you think the value is too high, and
you decide you’re going to lower it to get a really, really bright display, then that would
be a bad decision in this case. The health and longevity of your
electro-music
Klee
sequencer is dependent on this value. In other words,
don’t do it
. If you have any doubt,
breadboard it, and you will find the brightness is quite enough.
In the case of 12V operation, it may be permissible to lower the value to 4K7, but
only
in
the instance of 12V operation. However, try the 6K8 – you’ll find it performs well,
especially with a high efficiency, low current LED.
One more set of components deserves our pre-mount-the-panel-frenzy attention here: the
jacks. You should be sure which lugs of your jacks are which. The position of these lugs
can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, so let’s be sure we know which are which.
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