USB Power

N

Nic

Well-known member
Not sure where I messed up... I did not take the exact parts from the BOM for the DC-DC and the voltage regulator, maybe I missed something because they look like equivalent parts.

Yesterday, I had problems with my L4 running on battery, so I thought that it was a good time to test the USB Power supply. I plug the pedal in and then the L4 had the same problem, maybe even worse. After diagnosing the L4 for a while, I found it was only underpowered. I finally plugged it in a 9v Roland wall wart and it was performing perfectly.

With the USB power I get barely 5V at the power jack, I'm not sure the Traco gets it's minimum 4.5v and all I get is a whistling sound.

My USB cable was plugged to my computer screen ... can that have an effect ? I thought USB were all 5V.
Here is the parts I used (just need to post this and get the pics from my phone.)
 
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Measure between ground and the Input / Output pins of the regulator.

Do we have any idea what the current requirement is for the L4?

Did you ever determine why it wasn't working on battery? (Just a dead battery?)
 
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Robert said:
Measure between ground and the Input / Output pins of the regulator.

Do we have any idea what the current requirement is for the L4?

Did you ever determine why it wasn't working on battery? (Just a dead battery?)
Click to expand...
No idea about the requirement of the L4 ... I asked here but got no response (I was expecting that)

I've played on a battery for about half an hour with no problem, then it started whistling... the battery was getting hot. After a while, I can use that battery again but it will soon start behaving badly. I've measured around 7.7v it was still not making any weird sound.
The DC-DC on the USB got really hot while I was trying to figure out what the problem was on the L4.
On the 9v wall wart I get a stable +15/-15 reading on the dc-dc converter of the L4 and it sounds really good.

On a side note, I have a 4 tap waiting on its enclosure, and 100mA are not enough to power the L4, it goes on-off-on-off ... I have a second 4 tap that will get 2x100, 1x200 and 1x300. That could get me an idea of how much current it draws. One of these days I might build a mA meter ;)
 
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If this is for your Aion L4, then you can set an upper bound based on the Traco TEC 3-0923 converter that is in that unit's power supply. The max output of that converter is 3W (100ma ea for ±15V) and it has an ~82% efficiency. So it can draw a max of ~3W/0.82 = 3.65W. For 9V in, that implies a max current of ~400mA.

You could also email Kevin at Aion FX, he's very helpful.

(Note added: the L4 is a big unit, so the current draw is likely hefty)
 
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darwin999 said:
If this is for your Aion L4, then you can set an upper bound based on the Traco TEC 3-0923 converter that is in that unit's power supply. The max output of that converter is 3W (100ma ea for ±15V) and it has an ~82% efficiency. So it can draw a max of ~3W/0.82 = 3.65W. For 9V in, that implies a max current of ~400mA.

You could also email Kevin at Aion FX, he's very helpful.

(Note added: the L4 is a big unit, so the current draw is likely hefty)
Click to expand...
I just sent him a message about that, never did because he kind of makes it clear he will not give any support so I did not bother.
 
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Robert said:
Measure between ground and the Input / Output pins of the regulator.

Do we have any idea what the current requirement is for the L4?

Did you ever determine why it wasn't working on battery? (Just a dead battery?)
Click to expand...
13.3v in
9.09v out

So that part should be good.

Edit, so I plugged in my Artemis mkii, everything's fine with the usb power. Even when plugged, it stays at 9v.

On the L4, once plugged, the voltage drops between 3.5-4v ...
 
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