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Playback speaker tip


Ray Collins

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Anchor speakers make very good 50 watt playback units, they run on batteries for 6 to 8 hours and they are made in America. I bought a Liberty 4500 on eBay for $50.00. Why so cheap? The DC batteries are lead acid, if they fail, and they do, the speaker will come up for a few seconds and die. Swap in new batteries and you are good to go. Also did the same thing on one of their Explorer series and it worked as well. It will cost you more to ship than the cost of the unit.

Let's keep this to ourselves, don't want the competition on eBay to be too big. ;-)

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Ray, I won't tell anyone. Not the best sounding unit out there but they work well in many situations and are worth more than $50.00 IMO. Mine has lasted 25 years and counting and is always in my van along with my JBL eon510 which sounds decent. The bigger system stays at home until needed. I've changed batteries a few times. If I can do it, anyone can.

CrewC

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  • 5 years later...

Yours is in far better condition than mine!  Decidedly mid-fi, but handy, will take any level from dynamic mic to hot line,  and is pretty loud.  All of these would need to have had their gel-cels replaced by now (mine needs another set now), but those are cheap.  A small tip--they will function with just the wall-wart and no batteries installed!  We made a little platform that fits on the bottom between the two sides, with a baby receiver plate and a pair of straps with buckles so it could be mounted on a light stand.  In the old days mine had a CD player velcro'ed to the back!

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+1, and I was pleased to find it worked on the wall wart, even when the cells wouldn't hold a charge. Of course mine (two Werker 5Ah) were dead, but a quick look, and the Werker batteries were only $10 bucks each, so I bought two batteries. The problem is...they arrived as 4.5Ah, not 5Ah, which was annoying, and made me want to return them. Maybe this doesn't even matter? Or perhaps..I can put a battery in that performs even better than the original 5Ah Werkers? I'd love some ideas on a good updated cell... 

And that's a great idea with the baby receiver plate/playback mod.

IMG_9915.jpg

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Definitely use lead acids only. 4.5 Ah is close enough. Best batteries would be Panasonic from Digikey. Just check dimensions.

Running them from the wall with dead batteries generally burns up the transformer in the wall wart, depending on levels of audio. It definitely will not reach close to full power with dead batteries. Probably about 2 Watts. And it won't sound too good as the voltage on the internal circuits will be dancing around at 120 Hz (60 cycle rectified). With good batteries it is an honest 7 Watts+ and the circuits will work properly.

At about 2 Watts out, a photo cell LED module introduces a 2:1 compressor over the next 7 dB of range. In addition, the speaker is a custom made 2 Ohm unit with a light weight voice coil, short magnetic gap and large magnet. It has better efficiency than any other 8 inch we could find. In the midrange, of course.

Finally, there is a clipper circuit, that boosts the treble about 10 dB before the master volume, after which the treble is cut 10dB. This gives you linear response overall but if you turn up the input  preamp and run down the master, you can get an overload sound at moderate output levels with rounded off clipped waveforms.

All this to say, a properly working unit, is indeed a MaxiMouse. No Super Cheese needed.

Best, Larry F 

Edited by LarryF
Clarification
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That is one nice-looking Maxi Mouse!  I have an original Mouse I use for camping and LOVE it....

On a whim, I looked up our 'last purchase' info for repair batteries (it was a LONG time ago).  The battery we purchased for these units is a Power-Sonic sealed 6V 4.6Ah 230mA lead-acid battery.  Mouser's part number is 547-PS-640, at $13.45 each; YMMV (your moolah may vary).  They are available as of 29 June 2017.

Wes Herron

Lectrosonics, Inc.

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8 hours ago, LarryF said:

Definitely use lead acids only. 4.5 Ah is close enough....

Best, Larry F 

That's a lot of great information! Many thanks. It's a pretty special amp. I noticed the 2 ohm speaker and thought that was unusual. I felt the wall wart getting warmer than I thought it should be, and making a little hum. It explains why the amp sounded a little rough after a while. Good thing it still works. It charged the new cells out just fine, so I got lucky.

6 hours ago, WesH said:

On a whim, I looked up our 'last purchase' info for repair batteries (it was a LONG time ago).  The battery we purchased for these units is a Power-Sonic sealed 6V 4.6Ah 230mA lead-acid battery.  Mouser's part number is 547-PS-640, at $13.45 each; YMMV (your moolah may vary).  They are available as of 29 June 2017.

Thanks Wes, that's the battery that arrived, give or take .1Ah. I love this little amp. I've been testing it around the house with my iPhone driving it, and also with my Nebulophone as an unbalanced line instrument.

And I'll likely search for a new wall wart, for a back up DC power supply. Is there a wall wart replacement you would suggest? I'm worried about getting/matching the proper 2.X mm DC connector, and the proper milliamperage.

 

theshorelinemarket_2477_268488675.jpg

Edited by Rachel Cameron
clarity
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5 hours ago, Rachel Cameron said:

And I'll likely search for a new wall wart, for a back up DC power supply. Is there a wall wart replacement you would suggest? I'm worried about getting/matching the proper 2.X mm DC connector, and the proper milliamperage.

They look a little different now than they did when this MaxiMouse was sold, but we still offer the CH40 for sale.  Give the factory a call and we'll get you pointed in the right direction.

Best,

Wes Herron

Lectrosonics, Inc.

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The CH-40 is a 20-24 Volt AC (!) power supply. It was nothing but a step down transformer. This was decades before the regulated DC power wallwarts so common today. That was even before we made small camera mount receivers. Our highest frequency wireless was 42 MHz. (No, I  didn't drop a zero.) Our biggest sale was to Game and Wildlife since the long wavelengths were ideal for tracking dinosaurs.

Best, Larry F

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19 minutes ago, Philip Perkins said:

My MMouse ran fine with no batteries installed and the CH40 didn't get any warmer than usual.   But it's way worth buying $30 worth of batteries for.  It was my fave "always in the truck just in case" speaker for decades.

Perhaps the heat was from just normal operation, then. It was just an assumption I made. Either way, I just ordered another CH-40 wall wart for it, as a back up. Thanks WesH. And yes, the Power Sonic batteries were absolutely worth it.

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Over the years, some ch-40's were better than others with the newer ones being the most robust. They were typically killed with organ or some other constant level instrument and dead batteries. With good batteries the whole system was pretty bullet proof. You can find the Maximouse manual, of course, in obsolete products on the Lectro website.

Best Regards, Larry F 

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Delighted to see the MaxiMouse getting its due.

I've had mine since well before I ever contemplated doing production sound for film/TV.

Got it and an SM58 in the mid-80's when my ex and I were doing street poetry performances on Miami Beach. Served me well since.

Great tech, Lectro!

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We took a third octave equalizer and the Maximouse box to various musicians in Albuquerque and let them play with settings to their hearts content. We then duplicated the third octave settings in the unit on the "music" setting. As you might guess, it was bass boost and treble boost with a pulled down midrange. The tone control controls both boost levels, taking one up and the other down. Kind of a seesaw effect.

The "voice" setting is flat, with a gently rising boost at 7k and up. The tone control works just on the treble. All influenced by a light weight paper cone speaker in a small cabinet, rolling off any real low end. But it was loud for a battery powered amp. We sold thousands in New York city and a handful in the rest of the US. Guess where all the street musicians were?

Best, Larry F 

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A live sound mixer friend of mine said they were well known in France (?), with the busking crowd over there. Said he loved his MaxiMouse, and saw quite a few others in Paris when he was living there.

How far and wide were they shipped?

And megathanks to Wes and Larry, for the continuing gems on design decisions you guys made. It's likely the only place this information exists. Much respect.

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Maxi-mice used to be a very common sight where ever street musicians played in the SF area.  I don't see them so much anymore, probably because the arms-race among those folks demanded they go to bigger-louder rigs.  Since the Lectro folks are here....why was it discontinued, as opposed to upgraded?

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  • 6 years later...
On 7/2/2017 at 5:24 PM, Rachel Cameron said:

A live sound mixer friend of mine said they were well known in France (?), with the busking crowd over there. Said he loved his MaxiMouse, and saw quite a few others in Paris when he was living there.

How far and wide were they shipped?

And megathanks to Wes and Larry, for the continuing gems on design decisions you guys made. It's likely the only place this information exists. Much respect.

Hi there!

I live in France and can personally certify that this is true.

This is actually how I got to know about these amps.

Mine is just a normal Mouse, not the Maxi, but I'm looking to purchase a Maxi as well.

Cheers :)

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