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Gear / Technical Help => Battery Boxes, Preamps, Mixers, ADCs, and Processors => Topic started by: Chilly Brioschi on March 12, 2010, 02:04:14 AM

Title: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: Chilly Brioschi on March 12, 2010, 02:04:14 AM
Mackie is vague on this.
Can this 4ch mixer be powered by battery?
What, how, pin-outs, etc???

TIA!

http://www.mackie.com/products/402vlz3/pdf/402VLZ3_OM.pdf
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: sunjan on March 12, 2010, 06:25:33 AM
Can this 4ch mixer be powered by battery?
What, how, pin-outs, etc???

The three pin AC jack looks suspicious. It might be AC-only...

Call the pre-sale dept. and ask what it says on the AC adapter, which voltage etc. If it outputs DC, you should be able to replace it with a battery (at least in theory), but you will probably have to craft a custom cable. YMMV...
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: Chilly Brioschi on March 12, 2010, 11:42:18 AM
Can this 4ch mixer be powered by battery?
What, how, pin-outs, etc???

The three pin AC jack looks suspicious. It might be AC-only...

Call the pre-sale dept. and ask what it says on the AC adapter, which voltage etc. If it outputs DC, you should be able to replace it with a battery (at least in theory), but you will probably have to craft a custom cable. YMMV...

Done and done
Waiting on their response...

I might have to break out a hacksaw and outright modify the wee beastie.

I may drop the Oades a line as well.

Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: Chilly Brioschi on March 12, 2010, 02:32:50 PM
Oh, puke!  sales@mackie.com  is defunct.

Trying support tech email next and maybe the support forums   ::)
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: kirk97132 on March 12, 2010, 08:12:44 PM
I had one of those before I got my UA-5.  It takes ac power on that multi pin input and is not convertible to DC input. 
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: ghellquist on March 14, 2010, 09:01:18 AM
My guess is that you could run the mixer circuits as such on DC power but it very much depends on the exact setup. But it will not generate phantom power.

I have seen a few of these circuits and it seems like most have a very simple circuit to create the phantom power. For the electrical design people the circuit is known as a Voltage multiplier.
http://www.play-hookey.com/ac_theory/ps_v_multipliers.html

// Gunnar
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: Chilly Brioschi on March 15, 2010, 10:20:30 PM
Voltage multipliers only work with AC.  If you are trying to create the correct DC supplies for a mixer, you need DC converters for the required voltages.  +15/-15V is typical (possibly only +12/-12V), plus +48V for phantom and sometimes a low-voltage rail to drive LEDs or logic circuits.  The VAC input would be dropped across a +15/-15 transformer, then regulated and filtered.  The +48V would be multiplied off of the +15V rail, and the low-volt supply is usually dropped from the +15V too, unless there is need for high current on the low voltage rail, in which case there will often be a separate secondary winding on the transformer to generate the low voltage rail.

Converting this to DC would require at a minimum the +15/-15V converter (there are off the shelf solutions for that) and +48V (which has to be built with components--I published one such circuit last year).  Also note the unit's listed power consumption of 8W--that's probably a maximum, and typical consumption is probably much lower, but that is a huge load for a battery so you'd need to pack plenty of power.

Thanks for the tips.
No answer from tech support, and no luck getting a schematic yet, either.
The DC power doesn't intimidate me, but a quiet, switchable P48 would be new territory.
I usually lug 140WH with me, so another 50 wouldn't be noticed      ;D

I want a schematic before I bust out a $bean on an experiment!
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: Teen Wolf Blitzer on March 18, 2010, 09:13:20 PM
?

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=133283.0

Not familiar with Samson but it's battery powered.   ;D
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: JohnnyAcey on April 10, 2010, 11:55:15 PM
Behringer makes the UBB1002 or UB1002.   It's larger, but runs on 9V batteries.   I've used it and it sounds pretty good.   Clean sounding.     
Title: Re: Mackie 4 Ch Mixer 402VLZ3 Powered by Battery?
Post by: lutzr on January 04, 2011, 04:32:17 PM
Well, everybody is asking this... so I'll do it:  I'll build a battery box for the 402, and since some people asked for it, I'll throw in
INSERT jacks  ^-^

see battfor402.blogspot.com/ (http://battfor402.blogspot.com/)

RL