Voltage Regulator ID?

PiggySmallz said:
A lot of guys are using these to tour globally. Can't go wrong with hospital grade hardware if you're touring the world with tube amps. Worth every penny to ensure you're getting consistent voltage nightly.
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So with these, you can set a specific, target output voltage and it will regulate whatever's coming in to that, +/- some variance?

The problem I have with my Furman 1800 AR is that it's actually just a glorified surge protector. It's advertised as a voltage regulator. But it only regulates spikes in voltage outside a range of +/- 5v. So it does absolutely nothing unless Mains AC surges above 125v or browns out below 115v. That's a 10-volt range where it does nothing. Useless.

I could use a cheap variac. But then I'd have to manually measure the output with a multi-meter each and every time. And if voltage fluctuates, I need to catch it and manually adjust.

Then I saw this rig video and this $4K monster caught my eye lol. Maybe they make an "entry level" version?
 
FourT6and2 said:
I could use a cheap variac. But then I'd have to manually measure the output with a multi-meter each and every time. And if voltage fluctuates, I need to catch it and manually adjust.
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You could use one of the variacs with the led voltage display on it to cut out having to measure with your multimeter.

My voltage is high but steady (about 244 in the U.K.) so I built a bucking transformer to knock the voltage down either -8 volts or -16 volts (switchable) so i can use my 230v and 240v amps, I put a cheap led display on it off eBay and calibrated it with my meter so it’s accurate.

I had thought about a variac also, so I had more granular control over the voltage, but I’ve found as long as I get the voltage in a certain range for each amp that isn’t too high or too low, then it sounds fine, and the bucking transformer is fine for that.

Though if your voltage bounces around a lot I get you may not want to be constantly walking over to it to adjust.

There’s also the amprx brown box but I think it’s just a bucking transformer with multiple taps off the transformer, so no automatic adjustment
 
FourT6and2 said:
So with these, you can set a specific, target output voltage and it will regulate whatever's coming in to that, +/- some variance?

The problem I have with my Furman 1800 AR is that it's actually just a glorified surge protector. It's advertised as a voltage regulator. But it only regulates spikes in voltage outside a range of +/- 5v. So it does absolutely nothing unless Mains AC surges above 125v or browns out below 115v. That's a 10-volt range where it does nothing. Useless.

I could use a cheap variac. But then I'd have to manually measure the output with a multi-meter each and every time. And if voltage fluctuates, I need to catch it and manually adjust.

Then I saw this rig video and this $4K monster caught my eye lol. Maybe they make an "entry level" version?
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I've been very happy with the Black Lion unit. I use a blackbox if I want to go lower than 120.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...TAlJrjI5Kq8eQCV0-JRoCcYAQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
 
FourT6and2 said:
+/- 2v is better than Furman
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Yep those are definitely a tighter tolerance than the furmans. Ive had my furmans kick back and forth due to sag or surge here but like you, I want a unit that can handle a tighter tolerance. I wish black lion made one for a 20amp circuit.

I also believe that you can dial in the Kikasui in to an exact voltage. Mark Tremonti talked about it in one of his rig run downs on youtube about a year ago. I believe he saw Angus Young running one and it lead him to adding one to his rig. Im not an electrical engineer by any stretch of the imagination but considering what some of us spend on gear, having a high quality unit to protect that investment is money well spent
 
PiggySmallz said:
Yep those are definitely a tighter tolerance than the furmans. Ive had my furmans kick back and forth due to sag or surge here but like you, I want a unit that can handle a tighter tolerance. I wish black lion made one for a 20amp circuit.

I also believe that you can dial in the Kikasui in to an exact voltage. Mark Tremonti talked about it in one of his rig run downs on youtube about a year ago. I believe he saw Angus Young running one and it lead him to adding one to his rig. Im not an electrical engineer by any stretch of the imagination but considering what some of us spend on gear, having a high quality unit to protect that investment is money well spent
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Just wish they didn't cost so much lol. I'll do some digging to see what I can find. There are affordable auto-regulators on eBay for a few hundred. But they're basically variacs controlled by a mechanical servo. They take a bit more work to get running properly and they're quite old. Something more modern would be better, but I'll see what I can find.
 
gybe! said:
What benefits have you gotten from this? Solve any particular problems for you? Any EMI or associated improvements?
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It can’t really help with EMI because EMI doesn’t hit equipment through the power lines.

The Black Lion regulator does help with noisy power though yeah. The main benefit of these things is that they provide a constant 120v no matter what the wall outlet gives you, which puts less wear on components over time compared to plugging straight into the wall which gives you less stable voltages. Depending on where you are they can range +-5 or 6 volts, maybe more if you’re someplace with particularly bad or old wiring.
 
gybe! said:
What benefits have you gotten from this? Solve any particular problems for you? Any EMI or associated improvements?
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Like @TheGreatGreen said, I'm not sure it's going to help with EMI. It definitely helps noisy mains though, I get very little noise in my amp room. After getting a black box, I saw my wall voltage could swing between 117-126 volts. You can hear and feel the difference with that much voltage swing. For me, my amps get harsher and brighter as I go over 120V. Too low and I start to feel too much sag for what I want. I found I like most around 117-118V for the sound and feel.

For me, I won't be without one again. There were days when my amps sounded and felt awesome, and days where I was twisting knobs wondering if I was just crazy. It's made everything much more consistent for me.
 
Erock said:
Like @TheGreatGreen said, I'm not sure it's going to help with EMI. It definitely helps noisy mains though, I get very little noise in my amp room. After getting a black box, I saw my wall voltage could swing between 117-126 volts. You can hear and feel the difference with that much voltage swing. For me, my amps get harsher and brighter as I go over 120V. Too low and I start to feel too much sag for what I want. I found I like most around 117-118V for the sound and feel.

For me, I won't be without one again. There were days when my amps sounded and felt awesome, and days where I was twisting knobs wondering if I was just crazy. It's made everything much more consistent for me.
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Same. If you want to get really particular, get a variac and put it in line after the regulator. Wall outlet > regulator > variac > amps. Then you can get all the variac's benefits of being able to dial in exactly what voltage you want, but without having to redial it every time you turn on your amps just in case the wall voltage changes.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
Same. If you want to get really particular, get a variac and put it in line after the regulator. Wall outlet > regulator > variac > amps. Then you can get all the variac's benefits of being able to dial in exactly what voltage you want, but without having to redial it every time you turn on your amps just in case the wall voltage changes.
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If that worked, I wouldn't be asking what I'm asking in this thread. The popular regulators that everybody uses don't regulate tight enough. Furman's P-1800 AR regulates +/- 5v. Black Lion apparently regulates tighter at +/- 2v. If you use a variac after the regulator, like the Furman, that could work IF the Furman actually kept a tight tolerance. But sometimes it's really all over the place anywhere between 115v and 125v. So you still need to use a multi-meter on the variac and constantly double check it.
 
FourT6and2 said:
If that worked, I wouldn't be asking what I'm asking in this thread. The popular regulators that everybody uses don't regulate tight enough. Furman's P-1800 AR regulates +/- 5v. Black Lion apparently regulates tighter at +/- 2v. If you use a variac after the regulator, like the Furman, that could work IF the Furman actually kept a tight tolerance. But sometimes it's really all over the place anywhere between 115v and 125v. So you still need to use a multi-meter on the variac and constantly double check it.
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I use a Brown Box(set step variac) after the Black Lion. I run consistently 117-118V on the BB display. The BL display stays pretty consistent between 119V-121V, and usually 120V from what I have observed. I get it though, for someone like you that is taking very precise measurements, you might have to bite the bullet unfortunately.
 
FourT6and2 said:
If that worked, I wouldn't be asking what I'm asking in this thread. The popular regulators that everybody uses don't regulate tight enough. Furman's P-1800 AR regulates +/- 5v. Black Lion apparently regulates tighter at +/- 2v. If you use a variac after the regulator, like the Furman, that could work IF the Furman actually kept a tight tolerance. But sometimes it's really all over the place anywhere between 115v and 125v. So you still need to use a multi-meter on the variac and constantly double check it.
Click to expand...

I thought it was obvious I was taking about the Black Lion regulator in my post considering @Erock linked it specifically and I was replying to him.

But yeah the setup I described would only be as stable as the voltage regulator at the start of it. With something like the Black Lion or better, you could set the variac to something like a preferred 118v and know you’ll always get 116v-120v.
 
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