Zinc Carbon Batteries?
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- jagermonster
- Posts: 1152
- Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2010 8:12 pm
Zinc Carbon Batteries?
First post...but long standing question...
I recently traded my Megalith for a Meathead Deluxe. I unboxed it and plugged in a power supply, dug it immediately.
The other day I bought some zinc/carbon batteries at the dollar store and I'll be damned if they don't really make a difference in the quality of the fuzz.
what the hell is going on? why does this make such a marked difference?
cap'n?
I recently traded my Megalith for a Meathead Deluxe. I unboxed it and plugged in a power supply, dug it immediately.
The other day I bought some zinc/carbon batteries at the dollar store and I'll be damned if they don't really make a difference in the quality of the fuzz.
what the hell is going on? why does this make such a marked difference?
cap'n?
- mjab-1
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- Creepyfingers
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Re:
From my experience its the opposite. A fresh duracell is usually around 9.5v. Cheaper batteries sometimes 10v but they settle down to 9v pretty quickly. An unregulated power supply can give as much as 11 volts.mjab-1 wrote:The battery is probably giving you close to 10v while the power supply is
giving you about 9.5-9.6v.
--Brad
- stella_blues
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Re: Zinc Carbon Batteries?
This is the reason alot of fuzz pedals don't give you an adaptor option. They just sound better with cheapo batteries.
Also some people prefer nearly dead batteries in a fuzzface.
Also some people prefer nearly dead batteries in a fuzzface.
- jagermonster
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- Creepyfingers
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Re: Zinc Carbon Batteries?
Actually the reason a lot of fuzz pedals don't have battery jacks is because they are using PNP germanium transistors. The ground reference is positive instead of the much more common negative ground. Not to get too far into it but if you were to share a power supply between a PNP fuzz face and say a modern boss pedal you would destroy the transistors in the fuzz face with reverse voltage. You can power positive ground effects with power supplies but they have to be isolated from the negative ground effects. Fulltone used to sell a sort of "proprietary" power supply for the 69' pedals with the tip/sleeve flipped so people would stick to using it instead of daisy chaining with their other effects and blowing shit up. You'll notice no battery jack on the Analogman Sunface either (germ version). Batteries do sound better in most fuzzes though too. Its like having a tiny, completely isolated power supply. No AC ripple. The effect a worn battery is supposed to have in a fuzz face is that its internal impedance changes as it gets lower in voltage and interacts with the resistor tied to the output cap. At least as far as I understand it.stella_blues wrote:This is the reason alot of fuzz pedals don't give you an adaptor option. They just sound better with cheapo batteries.
Also some people prefer nearly dead batteries in a fuzzface.
--Brad
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Re: Zinc Carbon Batteries?
I was looking for some zinc carbon batteries recently and came up empty...where have you guys found them?
- 66Park
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Re: Zinc Carbon Batteries?
I get mine from places in Hong Kong, mostly. They are dirt cheap, even with shippping. Usually takes about a month to get them. I was told by a pedal building friend that Mouser Electronics has them if you call them up. I bet my Hong Kong suppliers are cheaper, though. Here's one place I've bought from http://www.dx.com/p/gp-1604g-6f22-9v-30 ... eB9SH2WODF.Lavely wrote:I was looking for some zinc carbon batteries recently and came up empty...where have you guys found them?
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