I just ran across this on the guitar parts resource website and was wondering if anyone had heard of it.

External Battery Systems For Active Electronics

Eliminate the need for internal batteries with active guitar and bass pickups and electronics !

The X-Bat9TM & X-Bat18TM external battery systems eliminate the need for internal batteries required to power active pickups and electronics including models from EMG®, Seymour Duncan®, Bartolini® and others.

With the X-BatTM system, the 9-Volt battery (X-Bat9TM) or batteries (X-Bat18TM) are located in the battery pack (shown above). The pickups and electronics in the instrument are powered using a stereo (2 wire plus shield) instrument cable to connect to the pack.

It's like having a 9-Volt or 18 Volt "phantom power" supply for your active instrument! Ideal for Strats®, Teles®, Jazz Bass®, P-Bass® and other guitars and basses that require routing for batteries or require pickguard removal or other disassembly to change the batteries.

Also great for mandolins, bouzoukis, violins and other instruments that are difficult to mount batteries internally.

Click here to visit the website (http://www.precisionmusictech.com/xbat.htm)


Seems like a neat product -- anyone familiar with it?

Wow neat, I wonder how exactly this works, and if any one has used one of these.

I hope it's cheap, because if it works like it think it does, it's got about $5 worth of stuff in it.

All it does is runs the 9 volts down a special cable. It just shifts where the battery is physically, not so much where is is electrically. That is why there is a jumper for the battery clip, in order to complete the circuit with the external power supply. They have added some monitoring circuitry, though, which I really didn't investigate.

Don't see the convenience of such a thing where you still need the battery's. I made an external power supply for my bass with EMG's and pre-amp.
This is how you do it: Buy a balanced 9 V trafo. Now I don't know for sure if it has to be a symmetric or an asymetric one? One of them gives a hum, so you need the other one. You can ask any electrician, they know.
Put an XLR with three poles in your guitar. There you got a spare pole for the + 9 V. Now use a XLR microphone cable for your guitar and make a jack signal output to your amp.
I work for years with this setup and don't need any batteries any more. :)

http://www.geocities.com/wironl/powersupply.JPG

What the heck kind of bass is that?

What the heck kind of bass is that?

Looks like a heavily-modified Ibanez Musician...

Wow Wiro, that's a pretty badass looking setup... :bassist:
Just wondering... You reckon it'd be possible to make one of those that has a few effect power supply leads too? I'm thinking 'bout doing something like that with the 5er I'm building, but keep a jack socket there too so if I want to to use it in passive mode (incase my power unit died or I was unable to use it for whatever reason) then I could run the bass straight into the amp.

It'd be fun to make a rack with one of these things in it... But I don't fancy always carrying around a 4U rack case where a 2U will do.

I guess all that stuff is cool, but it seems a lot easier to use a battery.

What ^he^ said...

I guess all that stuff is cool, but it seems a lot easier to use a battery.

+1