| Author | Message | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 826 Registered: 11-2004 |
To do my bit to save the enviroment I am going to use NiMH rechargable batteries, I have just ordered the best that is available which are 250mAH. Does anyone(Mica) know the current drain on signature electronics?? A standard Alkaline is around 500 to 550mAH so this is about half, well I usually get the 'fuzz' from my bass at about a year(depending on number of gigs) so I reckon 6 months or less which isn't bad. NiMH can last 1000's of hours which isn't bad, and since I ordered two they should see me well into my 60th birthday!!! | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 2213 Registered: 6-2002 |
I was told that the problem with rechargeables is that they don't hold their voltage as well as disposables. The fuzz sets in when the voltage drops below a certain point, not when the battery is "drained". | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 827 Registered: 11-2004 |
Adriaan..thanks for info but my basic electronic info says that the current drop off will affect the circuit, you can still get a 'tongue tingle' from a drained 9V. I guess I will have to wait for the electronics oracle DFung to chime in on this one. Again thanks for info and I will take it on board. | ||
| sonicus
Junior Username: sonicus Post Number: 17 Registered: 5-2009 |
Have any of you ever tried 9 volt phantom power ? Are these Alembic Circuits compatible with 9 volt phantom power? the Swedish company "EBS" makes 9 volt phantom power a standard feature of some of their products. With the EBS you use a TRS (3 conductor) quarter inch plug instead of the TS (2 conductor) plug. I have been using phantom powered microphones such as the "Neumann U87" for decades. Phantom power with a variety of voltage specs has been around for a long time, it is not a new concept. Wolf _ | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 830 Registered: 11-2004 |
I guess this is the lesser option of a fully fledged S1/S2 power supply, maybe because Signature electronics use very little current that this is not required but sounds like a good idea..as long as you don't use a radio transmitter. | ||
| dfung60
Advanced Member Username: dfung60 Post Number: 383 Registered: 5-2002 |
Hey, Ron W is the real oracle of the electrons around here! But I'll kick in my two cents. It's a slightly less green, but I'd probably stick with the alkaline batteries myself. I was going to mention this in another thread about manufacturing instruments from recycled/reclaimed materials - it's good to be more earth conscious, but if you're going to consume a battery or a piece of rosewood, I can't think of a more responsible way to honor it by using it in your Alembic. To me, it would be a shame to cut down an old growth redwood to build a deck in your backyard, but if you lovingly built and instrument with a top from that same tree, I think that's a good use of the material. The technical side of the battery issue is sort of a mix. Adriaan's comment is correct here - the voltage level from the battery is what determines the performance in an audio circuit, not the current or power available in the battery. When you use a 9V battery to power your electronics, it basically splits that power into +4.5V and -4.5V. Those are the "rails" or extreme levels that the amplifier can operate between cleanly. If you try to exceed the rails, the signal will get clipped off which will start out sounding less dynamic or more compressed and will get worse until it sounds fuzzy and distorted. As the voltage from the battery drops, the rail voltages drop - when the battery gets to 8V, it will be +/- 4.0V, etc. A new single alkaline battery (like an AA battery) is 1.5V; inside the case a 9V battery is a stack of 6 of these, so it produces a total of 9V. A single NiMH cell is typically more like 1.2V, so there are 7 cells in a NiMH 9V battery, ending up at around 8.4V. So you're kind of starting out with a bit of a disadvantage from a headroom standpoint (I think that you can buy NiMH with 8 cells which would actually be a little higher than 9V). Each battery has different characteristics for voltage, the amount of power they can hold/produce, and how the power degrades over time. Alkalines hold a lot of power and degrade slowly over time. NiMH can withstand a lot of power drain, but when they reach their threshold, it drops off quickly. That means that you may not get that much warning when the rechargeable battery starts to fail. Finally, if you keep a spare alkaline in your case it should be good for years. If you charge up a NiMH, it will tend to self-discharge on it's own, probably in a month or less, so you need to be more vigilant in keeping things charged up. Of course, there's nothing wrong with keeping an alkaline in your case as the backup, too. When you have a device like a digital camera or walkie talkie that would really eat a set of batteries in a hour of use, then it makes sense to look more closely at rechargeables. When you can regularly get hundreds of hours or more of use between battery changes, I think the hassle factor of rechargables is probably not favorable. David Fung | ||
| dfung60
Advanced Member Username: dfung60 Post Number: 384 Registered: 5-2002 |
About phantom power... Of course, Alembic is pretty famously out front here on the Series basses which are phantom powered through their own lines on the 5 pin connector. The earliest Steinbergers also had a external phantom power supply option which was dropped after a year or two. You could mod any active bass to be phantom powered, but there's a fairly high hassle factor. You need to have a phantom power supply and special cable and your rig won't work without it. There aren't many instrument amps that would provide phantom power other than the occasional EBS you cited. If it wasn't built into the amp, then you need an external box (like the DS5) to provide phantom power and things are really getting complicated and expensive. A mixing board is a more efficient use of phantom power because you may be powering many microphones and the power supply of the board will probably be relatively big so the incremental cost of each mic's power is low. For an instrument amp, you need to add the extra power and circuitry for a single instrument and most wouldn't even use this feature, so it's not efficient. Also, the power supply needs to be well filtered to keep from creating hum in the system which makes it more expensive. Studio mikes are a balanced system with a transformer in the mic which isolates the phantom power from the audio. A normal bass is unbalanced, so it's harder to remove power supply noise. David Fung | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 834 Registered: 11-2004 |
Thanks Dave..the batteries I have ordered are top of the range which on the data sheet will push out 9V, I have used lesser rechargeables and you are right..they don't work as well. I have also bought a really good charger(same make as the batteries) which allows trickle charge as well as full charge. If I am unhappy with the performance I am sure I have plenty of other uses I have for these two 9v batteries I have bought. I am conscious of green issues and trying to do my bit for the planet(my used alakalines go in the recycler) although not a total geen extremist. | ||
| slawie
Member Username: slawie Post Number: 76 Registered: 8-2002 |
How much damage is being done to the environment by the generation of the electricity used to recharge an "evironmentally conscious" battery? slawie | ||
| slawie
Member Username: slawie Post Number: 77 Registered: 8-2002 |
How much damage is being done to the environment by the generation of the electricity used to recharge an "evironmentally friendly" battery? slawie | ||
| slawie
Member Username: slawie Post Number: 78 Registered: 8-2002 |
D'oh slawie | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 2219 Registered: 6-2002 |
slawie - rough guess, but about as much as doing a double post. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 835 Registered: 11-2004 |
A lot less than us using our PC's I guess, lets just say there are a few million users on line at any minute. So take in the power supply which some are approaching 750W useage plus the display screen and it is a lot of electricity, more than any charger. | ||
| speicky
Advanced Member Username: speicky Post Number: 365 Registered: 3-2005 |
wlel, I save egerny bei alwyas swicht fof teh motinor when Im' onlien,,, rossy. ei coult'nd restit  | ||
| olieoliver
Senior Member Username: olieoliver Post Number: 2395 Registered: 2-2006 |
godo ieda! PP | ||
| dadabass2001
Senior Member Username: dadabass2001 Post Number: 1123 Registered: 6-2002 |
I'm gonna be in the same room with youse guise in etn asyd ekim | ||
| lbpesq
Senior Member Username: lbpesq Post Number: 3832 Registered: 7-2004 |
chagcoi, hciacog, hatw a ndferwluo wtno! ilbl, gto | ||
| dfung60
Advanced Member Username: dfung60 Post Number: 385 Registered: 5-2002 |
The green advantage of rechargeable batteries isn't about the electricity and charging. It's all about using and disposing less of the materials that batteries are manufactured from. A battery works by putting two different materials that have an electrochemical reaction together. Many of the common and most useful constituents for both disposable and rechargeable batteries happen to be heavy metals - cadmium, lead, or mercury, and in many cases the other chemical is caustic or toxic as well - sulfuric acid in your car battery. A car battery is big and has enough lead in it to make it economically possible to recover the materials (but you really wouldn't want to work in that plant). The amounts in an AA Ni-Cad battery (the "Cad" is cadmium) doesn't really work out economically as well. Even when recycling programs exist, most of these batteries will end up in a landfill with the bad stuff leaching into the ground. So, using a rechargeable battery gets the exhausted battery out of the landfill, and causes you to buy less disposable batteries which means that you don't need to mine the bad stuff in the first place. Even if recharging it cost a lot, you'd still be way ahead. The fact that the cost to you over the life of a rechargeable battery is much less than the disposables it replaced is icing on a cake in a world where nobody wants to give you dessert anymore. I just wish that they had rechargeables that matched the useage of instruments better. NiMHs work great in our Wii controllers, but in a guitar, not so much. Your mileage will vary - as somebody who doesn't play out anymore, I hate weekly maintenance tasks to keep gear going. Of course, if my battery conks out when I'm noodling, I guess that doesn't really matter much either! David Fung | ||
| sonicus
Junior Username: sonicus Post Number: 23 Registered: 5-2009 |
My main interest regarding phantom power is to optimize performance with non series instruments when doing session work. Wolf |
