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From: (Scott Dorsey)

In article ,
Joe wrote:
I am in need of a power conditioner for my home recording studio. I was
wondering if I could use some of the components I already have. I want to
run my equipment off of an inverter, which would be connected to a 12volt
battery, which would be constantly charged by a battery charger. Has anyone
done this? Is it a logical way to get clean power?

Why do you need a power conditioner? What is the problem you are trying
to solve?

Most inverters will produce MUCH worse waveforms than the power line, and
you will have bigtime noise issues trying to run off of them. You can get
some true sine wave inverters that have very low distortion, but they are
not cheap or efficient.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Sure, you could build a full online UPS using swtiching power supplies, Deep
Cycle batteries, (not car or gel cells), and output inversion based on crystal
oscillators and Class D amplification, and it's low distortion and relatively
effiecient. BUT it ain't cheap, it's maintenance intensive, It has to go in a
properly ventilated and temperature controlled room (so you don't blow the
joint up with hydrogen build up). You have to be fairly sophisticated
technically to pull this off.

Alternatively you can go with pre-engineered systems made by Sola-Heavy-Duty,
etc. They aren't that cheap either.

Also, you can't just chuck one of these things in the garage, because they need
to be in a temperature controlled environent. Batteries don't like to be
cold, and amplifiers, don't like to be hot.

Ferro-res transformers or CVT's come in two varieties, if you want to go that
route, make sure you get the harmonically cancelled, (low distortion) variety.
These are very effective if you are in an area where voltage sags and
brown-outs are common, but they don't offer you safe-time should power go out
completely. Also, they can be pretty noisey, so they have to go somewhere away
from where you are recording and they have to be decoupled from the structure,
'cause they can transmit a pretty good amount of acoustic energy into whatever
they are mounted to.

Really, How bad is your power problem? And how many more problems do you want
to make in order to solve it?

Or are you just falling victim to the high-end maketing hype that trys to sell
people "power conditioners" that generally arent that necessary?

Good outlets, (spec grade hubbles) a dedicated ground, tight electrical
connections in your walls and service are the starting points of good studio
power. That's where you put your initial efforts. Then, if you have a
demonstrable global power issue, that's when you go to further extremes.

Balanced power can be an effective technique if you are in an electically
noisey environment. I could expound on this more, I've engineered a number of
systems for facilies here in NYC, but in a home studio, the benefit doesn't
justify the cost, especially since it won't help until you do the above anyway.

Phillip Sztenderowicz

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