so whats the normal ma usage of a pedal

[Ansil]

and on that note whats the average mah life of a 9v battery

i ask cause my pedals tend to use a little on the high side. somehting like 25ma or better.  dependson the pedal. one of mine draws a whopping 60ma..  to me that is a lot for distortion.  am i wrong here.??

[R.G.]

There is no "normal" for effects. They vary over a wide range, depending on the individual circuitry. Some FET based distortions can use less than one milliamp. Some delays can be huge users, 100ma or more. Many distortions are small users, largely because distortion is the easiest, smallest-circuit thing to do. But that's not necessarily true of all distortions. There is no substitute for knowing the circuit.

The 9V battery was originally 165 ma-hr. Modern alkaline types can double or triple that. A quick search on battery life turns up the facts on batteries pretty easily.

To gauge battery life, divide current drain (including LEDs!) into the battery capacity, and get hours.

[Brett Clark]

That's why I side with Zachary on LED's - I put them on because people want them, but it bugs me that they use so much juice. Most of my designs are pretty low-power (even though they're mostly bipolar, not FET), and often the LED draws twice as much as the rest of the circuit, even with an ultra-efficient LED running at 2mA.

[Mark Hammer]

Although some digital-based pedals run up into 15-30ma current consumption, the standard is to aim for 10ma or less, so as to achieve reasonable battery life and minimal customer complaints.  

Keep in mind that such standards are entirely a function of the breaking point of consumers.  If 9v batteries cost $10@, anything that only let a battery in a pedal go for 3 months max would likely result in consumers muttering "Piece of %?&$ !!", and also result in an industry wide standard of current consumption of 5ma or less.  If you've spent $250 on a pedal you use only very intermittently, then forking out another $2 every month for a battery doesn't seem all that much to some people, and the odds are that you'll use a wall-wart anyways.  When you're talking about a $39 fuzzbox and a kid who doesn't wish to spend a fortune, the assumption is that the cost of batteries over the lifetime of the pedal should not drastically exceed the cost of the pedal itself.

Pop by your local music store and perhaps they'll have a DOD or BOSS pedal catalogue that lists specs.  The typical range is 6-10ma for non-digital.  I'm curious about the current consumption of the newer hybrid pedals like the Digitech ones or some of the larger BOSS dual-footswitch ones.

[Ge_Whiz]

Ho, ho.

When I got my Digitech RP100 home, they'd forgotten to put the adapter in the box, and I couldn't pick it up until next day. Reading the manual, I thought the current rating was a misprint, so I gaily loaded it with 6 - or was it 8? - brand-new alkaline AAs and started playing. They lasted nearly three hours, exactly as predicted from the consumption.

Needless to say, I've used the AC adapter ever since!

The newer BP50 is rather better, but I've never tested it to the end of the battery life.

[stinkfoot]

To find out how much current (mA) your pedals use, click here: http://members.chello.se/pastorn -> "power list"

The figures are either taken from the manufacturer's spec sheets, or measured by myself or other contributors. The list is most definitely not complete either, so if you know the figures for pedals that aren't listed, you're welcome to contribute.

/Andreas

[Ansil]

thanks alott.. i appreciate it. i dont' feel so bad about my pedals consumption now.