Nuts and Volts - November 2014

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EVERYTHING FOR ELECTRONICS November 2014 7

Programmed to Receive

When I got the August 2014 issue, I read Ron Hackett's work on programming the PICAXE. Thank you, Ron for taking the time to explain the ins and outs of the programming.

Lane

Project Strikes a Cord

Thomas Henry’s October 2014 article on hot rodding your electric guitar was very interesting. I have done mods like this over the years myself and for the same reasons.

The biggest problem I have with this scenario is the idea of having batteries inside the guitar body. You will find that wood screws are not meant for iterative removals, Les Paul will not be retained.

I have tried two ways to get around this: (1) a separate battery box that is cord-connected to the instrument; and ( 2) also using the guitar cord as a power cord.

In the first scenario, I prefer to use a single battery supply and then split it into two polarities on the PCB (printed circuit board).

Henry’s comment about not wanting to add parts to the PCB to have a split supply seems to be far less an evil to me than the overhead of having two batteries economically (either by part’s cost or space usage), when you consider the maintenance issues of having two 9V cells in the guitar.