Voltage Available in a Guitar

[jdajos]

Hello,

I'm new in this forum and am looking forward to sharing ideas with all of you.

My question is regarding the "hot" wire coming into a guitar. I do not have an amplifier at my house to measure or test anything but I am doing a custom wiring job on my freinds guitar. I want to know what type of voltage is available inside a guitar when it is plugged into an amplifier. Based on what I have read I don't think it's the standard 110VAC from the wall (that could get too exciting). Does anyone know this voltage level and current carrying capacity?

I'm not a guitar player. I'm an electrical engineer (that may explain why I don't have an amp at my house). Most of my experience is with industrial electronics. My freind thought it would be cool if I did something crazy to one of his older guitars so I'm going to give it a shot.

The main reason that I'm asking about the voltages in the guitar is to get rid of the 9volt batteries from the active pickups. I'm pretty sure I can design a circuit to run these pickups off of the existing electricity.

Has anyone done this before? Is there a product that already does this?

Thanks for the help.

[wolf]

I am speaking out of my league here because I don't use active pickups but 2 things I can tell you:

1) The amount of electricity going into a guitar is negligible. It is the electrical impulses going from the guitar into the amp that is the important thing.

2) I hate batteries quite a bit myself. However, I do not think you can get active pickups to work without some kind of power. (They are called active pickups because they are active components so to speak. Can you get a transistor to work without batteries (or other power supply? No.)

[erikh]

Sorry, can't be done. Active electronics require an external power supply (9 volt battery) to operate. The current running through the components is so small that it can't even light a low voltage LED.

If someone were to invent such a way to do this without batteries, and make the pickups, it could put EMG out of business as long as they were as good, if not better, sounding and quality.

[jdajos]

I figured it wouldn't be a real option since no one has done it already. I figured I should ask about it though since I don't have a rig here to test out.

Thanks for the info.

[bam]

There were an idea back then in GN1, in which you use a stereo jack/slot, and use it like this :
L for mono output,
R for 9v external power supply,
and (-) as itself.
Pretty neat, IMHO, but I personally just don't fancy using active electronics/pups.

[jdajos]

That is a good plan. I think this guy plugs into alot of others peoples equipment though. I want the guitar to be able to be used with a standard rig.

I think I'm going to look into a way to locate the batteries so the strings don't have to be removed to change them. I'm not sure this is even an issue though, considering the batteries last a long time.

[bam]

I have a suggestion, probably could make it much more simple.. How about changing your battery in a periodical basis, i.e. when you're changing strings; the used battery can be put into your stompbox(es), right ?