I am a dozy twonk

axisus

So, I spent Saturday wiring up a sustainiac pickup. A million wires, limited room, switch terminals obscured. It was a major pain in the ass and ...... it didn't work! I triple checked all wiring (not easy!), checked my wiring diagram a few times, resoldered some joints. No Joy. I dug out the 6 page troubleshooting guide and methodically went through the whole thing, checking each wire for grounding when switched, or ohms, or voltage etc. Everything seemed as it should be.

Headscratch ... headscratch ... lightbulb moment - I had installed a new 9v battery, but I recalled that I read somewhere (in the reams of cluttered instruction from the website) that nothing works if it drops below 7.5v. Swapped the battery for a different new one and everything works! Doh!!!!! I think that without realising I put a battery in that had had some use.

What a bloody waste of time Sunday afternoon/evening and then Monday evening as well.

normula1

I've never, ever done anything like that honestly 

Funkfingers

Read The Fernandes Manual

ICBM

Not necessarily your fault. We had a whole batch of Panasonic PP3 batteries at the shop that were very low on voltage straight out of the packet. It caused several troubleshooting timewastes until I realised what the problem was...

paulnb57

I did a complete rewire once, buttoned it up, fired up the amp, plugged in the lead, turn up the volume...silence........all apart, check everthing, still silence, then realised the lead in the amp and the lead in the guitar were different and unconnected!.. What a tosser!

Sporky

Funkfingers said:

Read The Fernandes Manual

Not sure that'll help with a Sustainiac...

DartmoorHedgehog

ICBM said:

We had a whole batch of Panasonic PP3 batteries at the shop that were very low on voltage straight out of the packet.

You could probably sell those for double the normal price to people who think pedals sound better on dying batteries

ICBM

DartmoorHedgehog said:

You could probably sell those for double the normal price to people who think pedals sound better on dying batteries

lol

I think we just put them in pedals that weren't very battery-sensitive. They all measured about 8.5V out of the box from what I remember, and rapidly dropped to under 8 in use.

randella

ICBM said:

DartmoorHedgehog said:

You could probably sell those for double the normal price to people who think pedals sound better on dying batteries

lol

I think we just put them in pedals that weren't very battery-sensitive. They all measured about 8.5V out of the box from what I remember, and rapidly dropped to under 8 in use.

Hah, if Eric Johnson's roadie ever comes in the shop you'll make a pretty penny.

I've found the same with pound-shop PP3s.  Have gone back to buying Duracells from the supermarket.

ICBM

randella said:

Have gone back to buying Duracells from the supermarket.

I buy them in bulk packs from Costco. They're really quite cheap like that, it makes buying cheap batteries a false economy.

It's worth taking out a year's membership for Costco just to buy about a dozen batteries, if I remember right. (Assuming you would otherwise pay typical newsagent prices.)

Funkfingers

DartmoorHedgehog said:

You could probably sell those for double the normal price to people who think pedals sound better on dying batteries

Electro-Harmonix went so far as to build a dying battery parameter into their Cock Fight pedal.

My favourite pedal in that vein was the Digitech FX33 Buzz Box. I used it mostly for mangling drum machine sounds.