Feb 27

Written by:
2/27/2010 3:17 PM 

I often get questions from various musicians about renting out gear from my studio. One of the most sought-after instruments that I have is my old Moog Modular system. The system is basically a standard Moog System 35 with a sequencer complement cabinet. Although the system is over 30 years old I rarely have any major issues with it. As long as the system is kept in one place and not moved around between different studios it normally stays in a functional state for a very long period of time. Occasionally the system needs to be fine-tuned but that's merely a minor issue ...

A few years back the original power-supply of my Moog system suddenly decided to give in during a tuning session of the oscillators. After troubleshooting the original power supply I finally decided to repace it with a new one from Power One.

Replacing the old power supply proved difficult because the connections of the new power supply did not fit the internal power harness of the cabinet. Rewiring the internal power harness wasn't an option since I wanted to keep the system as close to original as possible. The solution was to build a new power supply by reusing the enclosure of the original power supply. The electronics of the original power supply was removed from its enclosure to give room for the new power supply.

The new power supply was built by using four independent power supplies (NEriks PSU-1) connected and configured to supply +12V, -6V, +15V and -15V to the system.

In order to dissipate heat from the voltage regulators a heat sink was constructed from an 8 mm thick aluminum plate.

The circuit boards of the power supply was mounted on the heat sink plate which was installed in the old enclosure. The original transformer was reused as well as parts of the internal wiring and the output connector.

 

Copyright ©2010 Niklas Eriksson