http://www.schertlerusa.com/david.htm

Can you please tell me what kind of equipment will be best to power my amp and where can I find it.
Thank you very much!

I have tried it out running my Roland cm30 cube (Main Powered), a Boss RC-50 and a Zoom guitar effects pedal.
There appears to be plenty of power and I ran it for about an hour from 100% full bringing it down to 75% over the period so it appears to be up to the job for at least a couple of hours.

There are two downsides -
1. As Kier said, it’s bloody heavy so if you’re walking a distance to your performance spot – get some wheels for it.
2. The quality of the power is quite poor, so it makes the cube buzz. It’s not overly loud and doesn’t increase with volume so the actual playing of the music does cancel it out, but this is something to consider if you perform light acoustic styles.

I came upon this very informative site and wondered whether you might have any pointers for a total novice? I’m having a small party in a field and would like to power an ipod/lap top & some speakers. I need to sort out my power source asap – Any suggestions on what I need to buy & where to get it would be very gratefully received? Thanks.

Messing with the internal workings of a combined power pack may get you where you want if you research the job properly, but to be honest, it would probably be just too messy, time consuming and not worth the effort. The lead acid battery is not the best for extended power anyway. If you are going to put the effort in, design something yourself you can be proud that will do everything you need for probably the same price. That’s what I’d do anyway.

Cheers

I had a question in regards to an earlier discussion about car jump staring/ power pack units, eg. Diehard Portable Power 750 with 12 volt outlet and light. They are so convenient, as you say, with the battery, together with an inverter and a way to recharge the battery.

I know that the inverter is a modified one and definitely I don’t want to risk ruining the sensitive electronic gear Im using, mostly a drum machine. However Im wondering if I get an additional true sine wave inverter, and replace that to the modified one inside the unit and hook that up to the battery itself in the power pack would that possibly work, or would I still be in danger of ruining my gear?

The advantage to all this is the convenience of having a 12 volt battery and charger in one, at a low price. I don’t need a lot of power for what i figured out, probably under 40 watts of continuos power to run my gear, and for 2 hours.

I see the pros for getting the an actual marine battery and charger but I think this could save some money, and be a little more compact and portable for my set up.

Also, I also was wondering if you ever did try out your jump starter with busking as you hinted in a response above that you might try.

Thanks again.

I didn’t want to splurge on too much in my post but I perhaps should have mentioned the slightly more careful approach needed.

It is true that there have been incidents but LiPo technology, as all others are, is marching on relentlessly with the growing popularity and advantages of LiPo and combined charger/balancers are now the norm (mine are seperates) but I, for one, would never leave a LiPo charging and go for a drive in the country, as it were!

(I did have one ‘inflate’ itself very alarmingly on the bench beside me when I was working on something else!)

The quick guide you linked is great… if a little scary in places! And I haven’t tested mine in my amp long-term yet but over the next few gigs/weeks I will post a progress report to let people know if the advantages outweigh the extra care needed.

So far, Just one 1500mAh LiPo is way out-performing the dry cells. (I intalled two, plus the drycell tray is still in there).

I have pictures of my modification if anyone is interested, I’d be happy to share them.

Thanks,

fruitbat