Gk-3 Power Supply For Variax Guitar

Started by MichaelS, March 02, 2008, 04:34:00 AM

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MichaelS

Does any one know if the power supply for the Gk pickup would be suitable to supply a variax 300 guitar.  This would mean I would only need one cable to run the Variax through the VG-99.

I believe the variax runs on approx 7-8 vdc at approx 200mA

I believe the Gk pickups have a +-7vdc supply.  If the power supply in the VG-99 can supply around 200mA it might be possible.  I doubt that the GK pickup power supply will be able to do this but I thought I would ask in case any one has tried it or knows the rating of the power supply for the GK-3 pickup.

Thanks
Michael

Elantric

#1
basic answer - no

Why not run the Variax with batteries?


Variax needs 500mA as its a power hungry Freescale DSP56367 DSP + AKM A/D + Flash. you typically take a Variax 300, remove the guts from the guitar - mount those guts into your guitar

or

Put the Variax DSP board into standalone box

Use a RMC PolyDrive II hex preamp for GK13 to VG-99

and have a guitar that simply has Hex piezo PUs onboard and nothing else -( like a Breedlove Synergy), or a solidbody of your choosing. RMC sells a basic passive  adapter board to bridge the piezo PU output to feed to both systems.


a caveat - Most of these custom "external variax guts" boxes (Vari-box) tend to suffer from microphoic feedback when you feed the Varibox output into a high gain Death metal Amp sim.  Its a result of running the long un buffered passive mulitconductor cable between guitar and external  pre-amps, Stick to newage clean sounds at low volume works better with this type rig.

Elantric

Most just mount a GK-3 to a Variax  - Run the Variax on its internal battery pack, feed Variax output to GK-3 input with short 1/4" cable - run one 13pin cable from GK-3 to to VG-99.

MichaelS

Thanks for the reply.
When the variax from batteries I keep forgetting to unplug it when not playing plus the hassle/cost of changing/buying/recharging.
Gk-3 is already (temporary) mounted on the variax, it sounds quite good running it through the effects on the VG-99.  It provides another group of sound options and is quieter than passive pickups of my other guitars.
I am just looking to simplyify my set up.  I am not keen about pulling the variax apart (yet).  The figure of 200mA was obtained from the Line 6 forums but you would probably want some head room.

Thanks again - I will probably run 2 leads from the vax

Regards
Michael

erikbojerik

Sorry to revive a 6-year-old thread but this PDF reveals all (~400mA draw @ 7V DC) for those who read circuit diagrams:

http://www.epanorama.net/sff/Audio/Musical/Products/Line_6/Variax%20Service%20Manual.pdf

I know this is sort-of old hat, but thought it important to have this as part of the knowledge base.

I don't know about the OP, but I had a GK-2 wart on a Variax 500 and it made an already ugly axe even uglier. Now I am fairly jazzed to have fit a GK-2A internal kit into a cavity the size of a standard Variax 500, with the Variax tone control being the only sacrifice to space considerations. Both brains are in a custom guitar, with the Variax output fed into the GK system in place of magnetic pickups, no noise issues so far. At the moment the Variax 500 board is battery-powered but both the Variax and GK outputs are traveling out through the 13-pin cable into my VG-99 with no noise issues.

The last piece of the puzzle is to send 7V or 9V from the VG-99 down pin 9 of the 13-pin cable to phantom-power the Variax board. Wish me luck.

erikbojerik

Buckeye burl is waaaaaay better than 3-tone sunburst with black pickguard & GK wart \m/

I eventually hope to paint over the white GK pickup cover to match the buckeye.