Taperssection.com
Gear / Technical Help => Remote Power => Topic started by: macroint on December 24, 2006, 01:02:02 AM
-
I don't know what to call it, other than a battery pack, but I have a black box that holds six 9v's and has two mini plugs with one powering the PS-2 and one to the AD-20. I've had the box for about 2 years with nary a problem....until about three weeks ago when I opened the box after a show to replace the batteries and three of the batteries were slightly warped. I figured it got a little hot in there, no biggie. I subsequently went taping twice since then, with no problems, mostly using non-warped batteries, but I did continue to use the less-disfigured.
Tonight I went to set up and the box was very hot, but I didn't think much of it at the time...but when I plugged in, the mics weren't showing any levels and the red light indicator on the AD-20 was lit up like a big red candy apple. I opened the box and the batteries pretty much melted. Thankfully I had time to run out and buy some batteries...
Anyway, this type of battery box...do they go bad after time? Any idea what happened? Any suggestions on alternative power setup for the PS-2 and AD-20?
Thanks!
-
hmmm... i can make some wild ass guess, but it's no more than that...
since both the AD-20 and PS-2 "normally" only run off of one 9V battery each and are spec'd at a max of 18V external, i'm guessing that the battery box wires (at least some of) the batteries in parallel... if so, a mixture of old and fresh batteries may cause something like you describe... so would a mixture of alkaline and NiMH... or rechargables charged to different levels... or ???... simply because if some batteries are putting out more voltage than others when connected in parallel, juice is gonna flow between them with no resistance... hence there's gonna be heat... along with shortened lifespan.
you don't say if those new batteries you ran out and grabbed worked ok in the battery box or if you put them directly in the gear... but if the battery box is still behaving abnormally, i'd verify that the gear works fine without the battery box... and if so, then i'd pull all the batteries from of the battery box, unplug it from the gear, grab an ohmmeter and check for shorts while wiggling wires, tapping things, etc... should be easy to spot because something was very wrong!
-
Two things:
1. I think you meant the box holds (6) 1.5v AA cells, right? This would give you approx. 9v to power the PS-2 and AD-20.
If that is the case, then...
2. The mono 1/8" power connector that the PS-2 and AD-20 use is notoriously bad, because if the cord is partially pulled out of that connector, it causes a short for the power supply. This could easily account for the batteries melting. Are your connectors right angle? That would be one way to minimize the opportumity for them to pull out of that connector.
Also, it sounds like your battery box circuit would benefit from being protected with a fuse.
-
1. I think you meant the box holds (6) 1.5v AA cells, right? This would give you approx. 9v to power the PS-2 and AD-20.
No, (6) 9v's...
The connector sounds like it might the culprit...I've had problems with it before. Thanks. +T
-
Any suggestions on alternative power setup for the PS-2 and AD-20?
Thanks!
I powered my ps-2>ad20 with a wally world DVD player battery. It'll take a trip to Radio Shack to buy the cables and very small bit of soldering to make it, but it's worked great for me.
-
Any suggestions on alternative power setup for the PS-2 and AD-20?
Thanks!
I powered my ps-2>ad20 with a wally world DVD player battery. It'll take a trip to Radio Shack to buy the cables and very small bit of soldering to make it, but it's worked great for me.
Yeah, I agree. Wally world batteries rule. Save you a lot of money and hassle too. Keep the little 9V for battery boxes and the like...
Richard