is there a trick to keeping your leds inside the bazels mounts

[lucas abela]

mine keep falling out?

[Chris60601]

Hot glue?

[alex.s]

Yup, you'll find lots of people use hot glue with LEDs, some even doing away with the bezel and just having the LED itself glued in place.

[negativefx]

If you use vick's 3pdt boards from the Friend's Market on this forum, they hold the LED in place quite well.  I just drill a hole, stick the LED in it, drop the 3pdt with board down on top of it and solder it in.  If you want to get fancy, you could use a plastic bushing on the LED leads like MXR and a bunch of other mfgs do.

[Muadzin]

No fancy schmancy 3PDT boards for this young man! They's a scam I tells ya, a scam!!!

Seriously though, I use them Tayda bezels almost exclusively these days and so far none of them has fallen out. But since I always put the LED next to the 3PDT switch I can always solder one leg of the LED to the switch which pretty much guarantees it stays in place anyway.

[rocket88]

Blah, I do the same thing. I find that by soldering the anode of the LED directly to the switch the LED never moves once put into place. I don't like the idea of gluing it in place because if I have to take it out for some reason I have to then deal with having to remove it, and that's just more work then it should be.  

[Ed Nice]

I've sat with a heated glue gun ready, but never had to use it for this. I have always managed to get the stiffness of the wire/resistor in a place where it holds stuff in like a clip. I tend to push the LED tails flat against the enclosure so they are out of the way so I could just tape them down but I haven't really had an issue with this as much as I thought I might.

I suppose a bit factor in an LED behaving itself is where you locate it in the box? I've seen some placed very close to the DC, with the resistor acting as a clip and also some close to the switch  with the cathode applying the force to hold it in place.

I tend to sit mine mid way between the switch and pots where I would imagine popping out to be an issue but I just shrink wrap stuff and bend it straight (so to speak) and tell it in my bestest Mary Poppins voice to be a good by and stay there, and it seems to do so?      

[Beaker]

I'm in the no-bezel camp. I used them on early builds, but always seemed to have problems with the things.

Now I mount my LEDs commando. I have a perfectly sized drill bit that lets me push the LED straight into the enclosure firm enough that it will not push out or rotate. If in any doubt, I will put a drop of epoxy on the back of the LED.

I'm really not a fan of hot glue, and have never used the stuff, as my mum once managed to burn her fingers quite horrifically with the stuff while flower arranging.

[Ed Nice]

I reckon that's probably the way to go Beaker, certainly for me. I need to re-read some Conan Doyle stuff as the simplest and most obvious conclusion is most often the best, even if someone else points it out for you (having just drilled three holes for three LEDs in my PlimSoul box!). The bezels are pretty ugly and are definitely a bit of a weak point in the quality department?

Hot glue is a necessary evil I'm afraid. I did once manage to glue myself to a motorbike indicator I was fixing. Eventually, after sticking twelve things together that you didn't want to stick together, hot glue gets the two things you intended it to grab... :(

[Silver Blues]

I just drill a 1/8" hole (I'm using 3mm LEDs more and more now), drop it in and hot glue it in place. This works perfectly well as long as you have the LEDs with the flange on the back.

[piltdownman]

I'm with beaker on this one as well.  I used to use the bezels, but now they seem to take up too much room for my liking.  I normally use 3mm LED's now and if you drill the hole correctly, there's just enough resistance to keep it in.  If not, then a drop of super glue takes care of it.  It's enough to keep it stationary but not so much that you can't tap it out later if you wanted or needed to.  But in regular use, it stays put.

[IvIark]

The method I like best is definitely using a board for the stomp with connections for the LED included.  Not only does it make the offboard wiring a hell of a lot easier, but I like mounting the LED next to the stomp, and when the board is fixed in place because of the soldering to the stomp switch, in makes a great solid platform to solder your LED to as well.  

In fact you don't even need a bezel.  Just drill the hole for the LED big enough so that the LED is visible in whichever way you want, either sticking through the case or even just behind a smaller hole.  And then solder the LED leads when the stomp and board are installed in the case so you can solder the exact length you need to have the LED showing as you like it.  Perfect results every time.

[Muadzin]

I just like the way a bezel gives better focus to the LED, as opposed to an all direction spread of a direct mound. Plus $0,13 for a Tayda bezel as opposed to $3 for a stomp board? No contest whatsoever. And that's excluding my aversion of soldering any kind of board to my stomps. Makes re-using them in the future for anything else almost impossible. If that means it takes me a few more minutes to solder wires to a stomp, easiest thing in the world really, so what? I like soldering stuff anyway. I find it relaxing.

[Frank_NH]

I use bezels too.  They are easy to install and the LED is quite secure.  Lots of ways to do this...

BTW - these are the bezels I use.  The rubber base inserts tightly into the plastic bezel and secures the 5mm LED.

[Onepiece]

This type work well and look quite subtle when in place:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20x-3mm-LED-Bezel-Clip-Holder-Mount-Black-1st-Class-Post-/291279436298?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43d19b7a0a

But shop around you might be able to get them cheaper.

[Silver Blues]

I used to use those, but I found that the clips that are supposed to hold them in place on the enclosure are not tall enough for the thickness of the Hammond boxes, so you have to really shove the LED into the bezel if you want it to work. I've tried stepped-size holes too and that never works out well. JMO.

[Muadzin]

Onepiece wrote

This type work well and look quite subtle when in place:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20x-3mm-LED-Bezel-Clip-Holder-Mount-Black-1st-Class-Post-/291279436298?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43d19b7a0a

But shop around you might be able to get them cheaper.

I used those in the past, usually with kits ordered from GGG. Never got those to fit right, and often I had to use padding to keep them in place.

[motterpaul]

I take four or five LEDs and bezels and preglue them ahead of time (I have four in front of me right now ready to be mounted in whatever) - I just drop the LEDs into the bezels and use superglue to fill the bezel from the leads side. The small tubes of "instant fix" superglue work great immediately, but a lot of brands of so-called superglue like "Loctite" actually need 24 hours to cure - but they come in bigger bottles so they are a lot cheaper than real superglue.

I have a few hundred small LEDs & bezels, they are super bright and look great when mounted. By pre-gluing, if one dies I just pop it out and push in a new one and resolder. I have also gone commando and just soldered the leads to the CLR/ switch and DC jack - that works, too. But I find the glued ones are more stable.