Battery-powered supplies
 

I'd like to propose a new thread on battery power.

In this forum, we could design a nice DIY automatic charging unit. Perhaps even a hybrid power supply?

National Semiconductor, www.national.com, has some chips for battery chargers.

Vic

camn you run a car-battery loader as power supply?
if you can this is a way to get a ps really cheap, and the loading currents arn`t small in those things either.

PSU for...
 

Vic, what do you whant that PSU for?
It's important to know what are you going to use it for.
Preamp?:nod: Power amp? :bigeyes: Dac? :nod:
Knowing that is essential to choose the appropriate batteries, charger, etc.

It seems there are certain complexities in regard to battery charging(constant current, constant voltage, float charging , trickle charging, two-stage, three-stage etc) and I would be very happy if somebody pointed to where I can get some info on all this.

I'm interested in using batteries for both preamp and power amp (gainclone). However, I might start out with a passive preamp.

Vic

At least in my experience passive is ok but rather anaemic. An active pre is definitely better.

Battery chargers
 

Protos,

You can check here:

http://www.web-ee.com/primers/primers_frm.htm

Then click on (or download the pdf) "Battery chargers".
On this page there's plenty to read.:idea:

Batteries
 

I did some searching on the web. You can pick up 12V 7Ah batteries for about $20 apiece. Four of these would give 24 volt rails per side. That's $80. Then a charging system is needed. I'm still looking for an economical solution. I think that this is relatively inexpensive compared to buying the transformers and capacitors needed to make a quality power supply.

If Peter Daniel is listening, I know you use high quality caps in your stuff. Any thoughts?

Vic

Batteries? Hell Yeah!
 

I really like this idea of using batteries. I have used them alot in powering tube ampiliers, especially DHT. I am fond of the Panasonic LC-R127R2P (12V 7.2A) You would only need to put 2 in series for a single channel or 4 for a stereo jobber. So my question is how much current does the gainclone draw? How long would a setup using these batteries play? Also when using batteries do you still need the 1000uf caps and diodes? I hope Peter is using these same batteries on his setup and will tell us how they worked out. I Personally think car batteries would be a huge overkill. IMHO
Guiness