Aspects of portable power options to consider

To be fair, you could just buy a 1a 5v USB to ???mm cable and save yourself the 50 quid. Plug it into a mobile phone charger and Bob’s yer uncle.

Don’t know size or polarity of the psu tip so can’t suggest, sorry.

Whoa, would something like this work for powering the digitakt?!

Maybe not as the Digitakt needs 12v and USB only supplies 5v and .5 amp (though some Macs and Apple wall chargers can apparently supply 12v and 1.2 amps)

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USB ports supply 5v yes, but this can be stepped up with an appropriate converter cable. Modern USB can transfer up to 8.33a (according to a quick Google). For example, I power my Organelle with a 5v to 9v 1a USB to 2.1mm centre +ive cable and a phone charger. Goes for hours and hours. There was a kickstarter for posh colourful versions of these cables fashioned for volcas and the like a few years ago. Don’t know if it ever got off the ground, but it definitely works!

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On inspection the apple 12w (not 12v) USB wall chargers supply 5.2v and around 2.4a. Confusing name :confused:

In theory you need a power bank with at least 1a coming from it’s USB ports (not hard to find) and a 5v to 12v 1a step up converter. Make sure it is actually 1a though (check reviews, buy a good one), you run the risk of damaging your digitakt if you run it with below the recommended current.

That’s simply not true. There is no risk, it will simply not work or not work as stable as it should.

Even better if that’s the case :slight_smile:
Can you explain though? I’m repeating advice given to me by the Organelle’s manufacturers.

I don’t really know where to start explaining (I have an electronics engineering background).

Let’s try to keep it simple. Current doesn’t flow by it’s own through a device, but it is a function of how much voltage you apply (the electrons get driven by the voltage through the system).

Feeding in more voltage is dangerous, because more voltage means it drives more current through the system and more current means more heat. And the heat is what will do the damage.

Just throttling the current is like applying an additional resistor in front of the input. At some point the system starts to malfunction, but in no way can this lead to permanent damage.

If it would lead to permanent damage, than just using batteries would be quite a dangerous thing when they become empty (= cannot supply enough current anymore).

And before anyone jumps on me - as initially stated: this is quite a very simplified writeup, Nevertheless: undercurrent will never damage electronics (overvoltage does the damage).

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In the world of guitar effects, sometimes the power-starved sound is well thought of, particularly for fuzz pedals.

A dying battery can have some surprising results as well. I thought my analog delay pedal was broken because it kept going into crazy self-oscillation even at mild settings. It turns out the battery was going bad.

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I see, thanks for your full explanation. That all makes perfect sense to me as far as analog electronics - is it possible for file systems on digital devices to become corrupted through underpowered use? I’m trying to figure out why a company would warn against under powering because of potential damage if what you say is true for all electronic devices.

Dying batteries sound great in the volca keys too. I’d like a psu that had a knob for this at the volca end.

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Monotron Delay as well.

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Some pedal board power banks can emulate this. I’m not sure that it would do what your looking for…

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“Underpowered” isn’t really the problem, but when underpowered the device is on the edge of power loss. It depends on the type of file system in use, but “yes”, that’s of course a possibility (most devices use quite simple filesystems which are not protected against such things).

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@tnussb Thought as much. Thanks. Personally, I play pretty fast and loose with powering devices like my organelle. Had it on a diy 6xAA battery pack for a while which was 9v 1A but didn’t even give a warning as to when power would be lost. No damage done to my knowledge. But this went against the advice of the manufacturer so I didn’t want to be responsible for recommending the same for the digitakt and model samples without the same disclaimer.

excluding those of the power supply ?

Of course NOT excluding the electronics of power supplies. Why should it damage them? Not enough “juice” leads simply to malfunctions, but never to destruction.

Because my way-too-small eurorack psu is hot as hell and I fear for the components in the case.

But that’s not a case of undercurrent as discussed above, but more a case of “overcurrent”, because you try to “suck out more juice” as it can provide (or near its limits).

That’s of course no healthy mode to run a power supply at a regular base. Aging effects increase with heat.

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