Hi folks,
Naive question: would it be possible to adapt one of these cheap aliexpress current/voltage meters (0.56'' Dc 100v 10a Voltmeter Ammeter Blue + Red Led Amp Dual Digital Volt Meter Gauge Car Motocycle Voltage Current Meter - Voltage Meters - AliExpress) to check how much current an eurorack setup is drawing? Are there any DIY alternatives?
Cheers!
There’s some discussion of something similar, but from 11 years ago, here:
https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46075
I can’t see anything in your AliExpress listing about voltage drop. If it’s as low as the one mentioned in the above link it’s presumably not a big problem, if it’s much larger it might be.
In that discussion one person says
I think I’m right in saying we definitely don’t want a ‘lowside’ connection in a synth environment though - the extra handful of millivolts above ground could cause trouble…?
and I don’t know if that’s a legitimate concern or not, but it does appear the AliExpress module is made for a lowside connection.
On a quick search the only synth ammeter product I found was the ADDAC ADDAC200A
which I guess isn’t DIY and for which they seem to provide NO documentation whatsoever! Here it says (in 2017) “More information coming soon!” — and then no more information.
I don’t think current draw for a module is likely to vary a lot, so maybe just measuring each module once and then keeping track of the total plugged into each PSU is adequate.
There’s this one too: Test 3 – Joranalogue Audio Design
Good find. The schematic and firmware are available with CC BY-SA and GPL licensing. Not the PCB design, unfortunately.
Anyway, it’s in stock at SynthCube.
Note than the Test 3 is limited to 1A max on each rail.