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Rectify 110v?

Started by Fixr1984, April 07, 2012, 01:24:54 PM

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Roly

Please forgive me folks, but every time I see the title of this thread it gives me a bad dose of the jeebies.

Rectify the mains?  NO!  DO NOT do this!   :duh

There are situations where high voltage DC supplies are derived directly from the mains without an isolation transformer (mainly in industry), but guitar amps are not one of them.

The reason is that the strings of a guitar are electrically connected back to the amps chassis, and with direct mains rectification it is not possible to be sure the chassis isn't connected to the active side of the mains, with almost certainly fatal results for the guitarist.   xP

Another way of getting high voltage DC that is isolated from the mains is to use a voltage multiplier.  Here is a discussion of such multipliers specifically for use in guitar and other audio applications;

http://www.ozvalveamps.org/ava100/ava100psu.htm
If you say theory and practice don't agree you haven't applied enough theory.