Permanently dimming too-bright LEDs?

[Bradley-Jazz]

There'll be a resistor connected in series with one of the legs of the LED, you could either swap this out for a higher value or solder another one across it if you don't want to go pulling components out of the board.

Won't soldering a resistor across another (in parallel) drop the resistance and make the led brighter? (sorry if I'm missing something here!)

OOPS! Apologies I'm nursing quite the hangover, I omitted that you'd need to snip one leg of the existing load.

I'm an electronic engineer I swear

Hope the hangover’s lifting!

[JSett]

It's worth noting that it's best to dot on the Sharpie rather than brush it on, and do several successive coats to build it up. This stops the solvents in the pen lifting up the previous Sharpie application.

Also, really light colour Sharpies don't work as well as the darker hues. Regular ol' black works pretty well, especially with the dotting technique, as you can just build it up until you're happy with the level of opacity.

[DeathJag]

Welp, the sharpies were a total fail. I was trying to dim an EHX super pulsar and I guess those LED covers are made of slime, because the ink wouldn't stick to it. It was just wiping around like liquid. I used the dot method but they were just too small and when dots would hit each other it left a clear spot. Also the lights are so bright around the low edges of their cutouts, so just dimming the top of the LED is not enough. That's the real reason I didn't continue with the dotting, because the tip of the pen could not reach all the way down.

I think nail polish might be the best permanent solution, but that would take lots of experimentation and purchasing. I am back to black paper tape. Boo!

[JSett]

Welp, the sharpies were a total fail. I was trying to dim an EHX super pulsar and I guess those LED covers are made of slime, because the ink wouldn't stick to it. It was just wiping around like liquid. I used the dot method but they were just too small and when dots would hit each other it left a clear spot. Also the lights are so bright around the low edges of their cutouts, so just dimming the top of the LED is not enough. That's the real reason I didn't continue with the dotting, because the tip of the pen could not reach all the way down.

I think nail polish might be the best permanent solution, but that would take lots of experimentation and purchasing. I am back to black paper tape. Boo!

Oh damn, that's annoying.

I actually went and tested a few other solutions and I found good old-fashioned masking tape worked well... 1 layer muted it nicely, 2 was a huge difference, 3 meant you could almost not even see it.

Also, I found THESE which look great.

[DeathJag]

Those do look pretty cool, but this stereo pulsar pedal has a lot. There's a big band of bright white ones, I think there are 10 of them in a row. Black paper tape only needs one layer and the light is completely gone. I don't like it though because I will forget to change it and it will get gross and gummy, or dried out and powdery. I have to remember to change it every year or so.

[øøøøøøø]

Resistor swap, but when I’m feeling lazy a small scrap of blue painter’s tape works on those godawful bright ass white ones (also on the too-bright blue ones)

[Surfysonic]

Resistor swap, but when I’m feeling lazy a small scrap of blue painter’s tape works on those godawful bright ass white ones (also on the too-bright blue ones)

Thanks for the recommendation - I had to put a few layers of blue painter's tape on my Walrus Audio Julia's to very bright LED lights. So much better now!

[hulakatt]

I've used a few of these and been reasonably happy with the results.