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Cart mixers, how do you power them?


Diego Sanchez

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Hi everyone

I have been in the look for a new mixer for the cart. I have been using a rental CL-9 and was thinking on buying one. But i hate the fact that i have to loose an iso for a talkback mic. So i'm thinking that if i'm going to loose an iso, at least i should gain better preamps and outputs, so i'm looking into an external mixer, like a cooper or audio developments.

But i have seen a lot of people using the yamaha 01v96, or sonosax or similar. I would love the extra channels and outputs and all, but i'm just wondering, how do you power it on the cart? They only accept 120-240v, so do you use an inverter or similar?

Thanks a lot

Diego

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But i have seen a lot of people using the yamaha 01v96, or sonosax or similar. I would love the extra channels and outputs and all, but i'm just wondering, how do you power it on the cart? They only accept 120-240v, so do you use an inverter or similar?

"sonosax or similar" meaning Cooper, Solice, Audio Developments, etc., are all 12 volt DC powered. Only the Yamaha you mentioin requires AC (mains) power. The people that use Yamaha have worked this out with batteries and inverter. Search this site or go to Phil Palmer's Yamaha 01v site to get details.

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Our host posted while I was writing this, but there you go.

Cooper 106/108+1's need external DC of 15 to 24 V. DC if you're using the phantom power built into the board. Cooper 208 and 306, Audio Developments, Sonosax and PSC consoles all run on 12 V. DC. Of the boards you mentioned, only the Yamaha is AC only, as are the Mackie and Allen and Heath consoles used by some.

All of the DC powered boards above can be powered via an AC supply that's powered via an inverter, but that's a little inefficient.

Best regards,

Jim

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Thanks guys,

yes when i meant the yamaha and similar, i meant the A&H and Mackie some people use, not Sonosax, sorry.

I guess inverter is the way to go if i want more channels.

Gotham Sound built a 12V power supply for my A&H MixWizard3.

Thanks, will check with them.

A vast majority of the time I don't have to run 7 lav tracks.. Here's my solution when I have to use input 8 for both

http://www.sescom.co...item=SES-XLR-AB

Flip to lav input when needed, flip to SM57 when slate

That is a good option, but i use the same mic as slate and com to the boom.
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I did a few films with a Mackie board feeding my PD-6. I used a Samplex 300 watt sine wave inverter. I settled on that because people here had been using Samplex sine wave inverters with success.

That was the 2nd sine wave inverter I bought. The first one created a noise issue with my cart that nothing could get rid of. I got a ton of help on here with suggestions to eliminate it, and in the end swapping the inverter out made the problem go away.

On the plus side, you have a wide selection of boards. I was using a Mackie Onyx that had the firewire card, so I could have (theoretically) connected to a laptop and run Boom Recorder (or something) as a backup recording.

On the negative side, I never felt my 40lb lead Optima Blue Top battery powered the cart as long as it should have when I was running the inverter. It's possible my charger was tricking me and not fully charging the battery. I work on projects where we may never get AC power on set, so I need to be self sufficient for a full 12 hour day. I may be working off a cart, but be in the middle of a state park where we are a 5+ minute drive from the nearest 110volt power. Most all inverters have fans, and unless you do a mod, you will hear them on a quiet set. I never got around to modding the inverter, though if we were working indoors, I switched to house power. If we were outside under battery power, I kept my distance and it was fine.

There are definitely things I liked about a traditional mixing board, but there are some nice features to a mixing panel. Some of that may be the fact that I used a mixing board for 20 years, so it's just how I learned to do things.

I eventually got a Fusion, so I now use the Mix-12.

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I did a few films with a Mackie board feeding my PD-6. I used a Samplex 300 watt sine wave inverter. I settled on that because people here had been using Samplex sine wave inverters with success.

That was the 2nd sine wave inverter I bought. The first one created a noise issue with my cart that nothing could get rid of. I got a ton of help on here with suggestions to eliminate it, and in the end swapping the inverter out made the problem go away.

On the plus side, you have a wide selection of boards. I was using a Mackie Onyx that had the firewire card, so I could have (theoretically) connected to a laptop and run Boom Recorder (or something) as a backup recording.

On the negative side, I never felt my 40lb lead Optima Blue Top battery powered the cart as long as it should have when I was running the inverter. It's possible my charger was tricking me and not fully charging the battery. I work on projects where we may never get AC power on set, so I need to be self sufficient for a full 12 hour day. I may be working off a cart, but be in the middle of a state park where we are a 5+ minute drive from the nearest 110volt power. Most all inverters have fans, and unless you do a mod, you will hear them on a quiet set. I never got around to modding the inverter, though if we were working indoors, I switched to house power. If we were outside under battery power, I kept my distance and it was fine.

There are definitely things I liked about a traditional mixing board, but there are some nice features to a mixing panel. Some of that may be the fact that I used a mixing board for 20 years, so it's just how I learned to do things.

I eventually got a Fusion, so I now use the Mix-12.

FWIW, the Xantrex 1800i is a great inverter -- Richard Lightstone turned me on to it, and also provided info on the fan-interrupt mod. If you're running an inverter on your cart, it might be something to consider. I got mine through West Marine (not cheap, but well worth the investment if you're after clean reliable power for extended periods when no AC power is available.)

~tt

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Has anyone measured the actual current draw of the O1V? The O1V96i manual states that it draws 90w. Normally typical operating current draw of gear is a fraction of the spec in real world use. Do you really need such a large inverter for the o1v panel?

Anyone have experience with inverter / chargers that automatically switch over to shore power when available?

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I think the current on the 01V would go up slightly if you engaged all the phantom-powered inputs, but if it's (mostly) in line-mode, I don't think it draws a lot of current. I used the larger Yamaha 03D mixer for years and years, and my memory is that it only used about 120 watts at most. The much-bigger DM1000 was rated at 135 watts, but I think that went up another 30-40 watts if you added the meter bridge.

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A vast majority of the time I don't have to run 7 lav tracks.. Here's my solution when I have to use input 8 for both

http://www.sescom.co...item=SES-XLR-AB

Flip to lav input when needed, flip to SM57 when slate

+1. You can homebrew this kind of thing very easily--I made a slate-mic box that dropped into the boom mic line from CanaKit parts, used it when needing to have a boomist w/ TB when using a bag-on-a-cart.

philp

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Hi everyoneI have been in the look for a new mixer for the cart. I have been using a rental CL-9 and was thinking on buying one. But i hate the fact that i have to loose an iso for a talkback mic. So i'm thinking that if i'm going to loose an iso, at least i should gain better preamps and outputs, so i'm looking into an external mixer, like a cooper or audio developments.But i have seen a lot of people using the yamaha 01v96, or sonosax or similar. I would love the extra channels and outputs and all, but i'm just wondering, how do you power it on the cart? They only accept 120-240v, so do you use an inverter or similar?Thanks a lotDiego
As others have suggested, if the primary issue is loosing the iso to the slate mic, you can sort out a slate mic with external switches and splitters. You will never get a more economical and power efficient package as recorder and panel combo. You can go battery analogue and you have a good choice: in my view, Sonosax and the others, the others being a good second hand Cooper, an Audio Developments or a Solice. Remember that if you go analogue, you make channel delays more difficult and you may have to reconsider when you get digital microphones and wireless systems of different latencies. If I were to go mains again it would be because I needed a lot more than I already have with the Sonosax ST. I would need so much more from a mixer that the hassle of the heavy batteries and the inverters was worth it. I used a mains Mackie some years ago and it was a good and very flexible system with so many channels that I could afford to devote one to talkback and one to tone. It was a costly move to the Sonosax but the quality of the pre-amps, eq and limiters, the inbuilt recorder, the AD converters and the 12-18v input all contributed to my decision. Tim
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