4pdt and conserving battery

[Zben3129]

Would it be possible to use a 4pdt to switch the battery on and off?

As in set it up like the normal 3pdt switches


But use the 4th pole to connect the battery when the circuit is in use




With this setup, when the effect is on, the battery will be connected by the 4th pole, and when the effect is in bypass, the battery will be disconnected, aka no loss of battery life while not using effect. Also, if you forget to unplug your cable from the effect before going to bed, theres a 50% chance you had it in bypass, therefore a 50% chance of you having a dead battery. Oh how many times i have done that (RIP, poor duracell)


Correct me if this is wrong

[jakenold]

I think you would need a, what R.G. Keen calls a BFC - big explicit cap, to delay the power supply to the effect. Or else it's gonna pop like mad!

Kind regards, Jake

[darron]

well.... you can always set up a 3pdt to do this too. with a 3pdt, people usually use two poles for bypassing the signal, and then use the other pole to switch either positive or negative to the LED. you could set up that other pole to switch ground to both the effect and the LED and once, right?

this generally won't be a good idea though. most active circuits need to have the effect running for a very short time (less than a second) before the switch sends the signal through it to stop a very large initial turn on noise. if you are daisy-chaining the power to multiple effects also then the sudden change in current draw could cause unwanted noise on both turning the effect on and off. there are some effects that are simple enough and draw so little current that this isn't much of a problem such as wah pedals sometimes. but then, you may as well leave them running anyway. the LED is often what draws most of the current, and you already know that's going to be switched. a couple of times i have accidentally left pedals without LEDs running off battery and days later it's still in use.

as said, you could try playing with some massive caps to smooth things out, but that isn't always going to work.

anyway... just use a good power supply and turn it off when you are done (:

[Mark Hammer]

Darron's correct on all counts.

Simply not worth the effort to do what you suggested.  If you're concerned about power consumption, use superbright LEDs or no LEDs at all (why DO people need one to tell if a fuzz is on  ) and low power op-amps.  Better yet, use a power supply.

Though not all effects do so, a great many will have a turn on time when the power is restored.  If you are plugging in for the first time, it will likely be restored by the time you finish inserting the phone plug and put the pedal on the floor.  If you cut the power while playing and then restore it, you WILL notice the time gap when the effect is not functioning while the smoothing cap charges up again.

[Zben3129]

Thanks guys, I forgot about the pop that would occur