Pignose Hog 30 battery bypass

Not sure if this is a good idea. I believe the battery works as sort of a buffer in the event that there are spikes on the AC supply. Basically the battery provides a bit of protection for the amplifiers circuitry.

Per the directions, the unit comes with a smart charger, which I believe is essentially a 12V power supply. I don't know if the power supply will turn on if the battery is not in place. If it does, the voltage may run slightly high. You could try it, but IMHO you probably put the amp at greater risk by running sans battery.

That being said, I am not an expert...perhaps @agedhorse will comment.

 

I'm not sure if this is true of the Pignose, but in some battery-powered audio products, the device is always running off of the battery -- when it's plugged in, a simple DC charging circuit is charging the battery. This negates the need for any sort of filtering of the DC supply circuit - in fact, it nearly eliminates the power supply altogether. If that's the case with this thing, a functioning battery has to be in place for it to operate. An appropriately-sized external 12-volt DC supply could work, I would think.

 

Three possibilities I can think of:
1. The second set of batteries where either bad or incompatible.
2. The charger is damaged.
3. Something else is wrong with the amp.

The charger appears to have some sort of circuitry designed to sense either the current draw or voltage of the battery. The battery must have specific characteristics or the charger will not be able to switch mode. Also if something else is wrong with the amp it can interfere with the sensing capabilities of the charger. Obviously if the charger is damage it won't function properly.

When you first start charging a battery, a higher current is used until the battery is charged to a certain percent. As the battery approaches a full charge, the current is reduced. After the battery reaches a fully charged state, an advanced charger will either switch to trickle charge or stop charging altogether and monitor the voltage, so it can top the battery off as needed. If the charger stays in the high current mode all the time I believe the life of the battery will be very short.

Without knowing more specifics about how the circuit should work and having the ability to troubleshoot, that's about as much as I can say.

 

This was also my first thought.

 

If the battery is shorted, nothing is going to work. The amp requires a source of DC voltage, the batteries are one way to do it. The power supply may not be able to supply the current that the amp requires to run. I would ask the manufacturer.

 

Some amps do require the battery to be present. Were the replacement batteries exactly the same type? Different battery chemistries use different charger types.