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Post subject: Weak batteries helping tone
Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 11:17 pm
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Hi all, I have an old 80's SD-1 that I bought in the fall sometime. I've been using it mostly every day with the same battery since then. The battery has lasted so long because the current draw of the pedal is quite minimal; something like 6Ma.

Well yesterday the LED had finally become so faded that I thought I would oblige and throw in a new 9V. I've noticed that since throwing in the new battery, the tone has become less organic than when running it on a battery that has nearly met its maker.

I consider this pedal my main tone. I enjoyed it so much before having changed the battery.. Am I cursed to forever feed this pedal old batteries, despite the hassle that goes with it? I was planning on getting a Pedal Power and using the sag control, but it makes sense that the 'Sag' control only minimalizes voltage, not the current.

Alas, I guess Hendrix did this with his Fuzz Face. Maybe I'm in good company.


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Post subject: Re: Weak batteries helping tone
Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:51 am
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Toronado wrote:
Hi all, I have an old 80's SD-1 that I bought in the fall sometime. I've been using it mostly every day with the same battery since then. The battery has lasted so long because the current draw of the pedal is quite minimal; something like 6Ma.

Well yesterday the LED had finally become so faded that I thought I would oblige and throw in a new 9V. I've noticed that since throwing in the new battery, the tone has become less organic than when running it on a battery that has nearly met its maker.

I consider this pedal my main tone. I enjoyed it so much before having changed the battery.. Am I cursed to forever feed this pedal old batteries, despite the hassle that goes with it? I was planning on getting a Pedal Power and using the sag control, but it makes sense that the 'Sag' control only minimalizes voltage, not the current.

Alas, I guess Hendrix did this with his Fuzz Face. Maybe I'm in good company.


Undervolting pedals is fairly common in my experience. just measure the voltage of the old 9v while its under load and simply match that on the power supply to get the tone you want. current limiting isn't really a big factor in this situation, the pedal will only draw as much current as it can. this is why you measure voltage while in operation, while the pedal is drawing power it will drop the voltage a bit more. its probably only drawing 30 to 40 ma anyways.

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