VDrops too fast to debug

[petemoore]

  MArshall Simulator, non cabinet only, ...3 days into this, and it's now CHOWING battery, not getting hot, that might be easier, but counting down a tenth of a volt every second or so.
  This is making it rather difficult to use voltage as a debugging reference.
  After clipping a DMM 'beep moded' lead to:
  V+
  1/2V
  V_
  And touching every conductive surface on the board, I've found no 'stray' connections, well at least on the rails, I'm a slight bit less convinced of the 1/2v connections as there are many and they're varied, opamp + inputs, bias resistors and pots etc., thing is this part of the circuit was working yesterday.
  I can plug one of the opamps in, OA 5 IIRC, and not have the power drain, any of the other opamps, one at a time produces the drain.
  Could a buncha fried opamps drain power like this?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

  MArshall Simulator, non cabinet only, ...3 days into this, and it's now CHOWING battery, not getting hot, that might be easier, but counting down a tenth of a volt every second or so.
    I can plug one of the opamps in, OA 5 IIRC, and not have the power drain, any of the other opamps, one at a time produces the drain.
  Could a buncha fried opamps drain power like this?

Well, fried op amps CAN suck current... but, have you measured how much current is being drawn? By each one, as you plug it in? If you run it on a plugpack instead of a battery, does it get hot then?

[R.G.]

have you measured how much current is being drawn? By each one, as you plug it in?

Good call, Paul.

One easy-ish trick for doing that is to clip the battery clip on only one terminal of the battery, then hook up your multimeter clipleads to the free terminal of the battery and the battery clip. That way the current runs through the meter and you can directly measure it.

[petemoore]

  Thanks Paul, RG.
  One battery, then one between Gnd and V+ seems to be the one dropping V fast like that, the battery between V- and gnd seems 'normal'.