30 Days on a 9 Volt??!?

[RefrigRaider]

I have an ES2 on my Taylor 110e, and the 9 volt battery has only been lasting a month. The battery is Duracell. I use the instrument every day for practice (between 1 and 2 hours through a Fender acoustic amp), plus two rehearsals with the band (total 6 hours per week) and then Sunday service. I used to have an LRBaggs Element on a different instrument and got a year out of a 9 volt battery with identical practice/play times. What is your experience with ES2 battery consumption? Is this 30 day thing normal?

[lkingston]

are you by chance leaving the guitar plugged in when you aren't using it?

[Gordon Currie]

Like lkingston said, make sure you don't leave the cable plugged into the guitar. My wife did that with her Taylor ES2 and the battery drained while at performance (at a church, no less). Luckily we were between songs and I could run upstairs, locate a battery, change it and replace the guitar on the stand 15 seconds before we were to play again.

The ES2 makes a loud noise that goes down in pitch when it has reached battery zero.

[Methos1979]

Yep - I'm betting you're leaving it plugged in? I did that with my PARA DI when I first got it. Killed it in a couple weeks. Now I get about 200 hours out of it!!

[RefrigRaider]

I think y'all are probably right, although I don't think there's any difference in the amount of time I'm plugged in on the ES2 when compared to the LRBaggs Element on the previous guitar. Perhaps I'm doing something differently . . . I estimate the instrument is plugged in an average of 16 hours a week. The ES2 has EQ and a phase switch, and so is more complicated than the Element, maybe that's the difference?

Anyway, no biggie. A 9v once a month won't break the bank. I'm just curious if 30 days is normal.

[lkingston]

Plugging it in turns it on, so if you leave it plugged in when you are not playing it, you are draining the battery unnecessarily. That’s what we are trying to tell you.

[pieterh]

If I played my Taylor plugged in every day I would not be at all surprised if I had to change the battery after 30 days or so. I never thought to do a comparison when I had a Matrix with end pin preamp in my Guild but I would usually have a new battery on hand for gigs if I’d had the old battery in there for a while. I do the same with the Taylor (the others including the Guild have Pure Minis installed and go through a floor preamp now).

Are you using the same brand and type of battery? I wouldn’t expect extreme differences in performance between different brands of alkaline batteries but some variance will be there.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by RefrigRaider

I think y'all are probably right, although I don't think there's any difference in the amount of time I'm plugged in on the ES2 when compared to the LRBaggs Element on the previous guitar. Perhaps I'm doing something differently . . . I estimate the instrument is plugged in an average of 16 hours a week. The ES2 has EQ and a phase switch, and so is more complicated than the Element, maybe that's the difference?

Anyway, no biggie. A 9v once a month won't break the bank. I'm just curious if 30 days is normal.

I have a barndoor style preamp in one of my stage guitars that I go through a ton of batteries with and yes it has a EQ, notch filter, tuner (with LCD display), and goes through batteries fairly quick whereas batteries in all my other guitars last quite a bit longer. I just buy batteries by the boxload and keep extras in my case!

This is what I use...

https://www.ebay.com/p/Duracell-Proc...-24/1900407518

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by RefrigRaider

I have an ES2 on my Taylor 110e, and the 9 volt battery has only been lasting a month. The battery is Duracell. I use the instrument every day for practice (between 1 and 2 hours through a Fender acoustic amp), plus two rehearsals with the band (total 6 hours per week) and then Sunday service. I used to have an LRBaggs Element on a different instrument and got a year out of a 9 volt battery with identical practice/play times. What is your experience with ES2 battery consumption? Is this 30 day thing normal?

30*1.5 + 4.3*6 = 70 hours

This reference states about 50 hours of ES2 battery life:

https://www.taylorguitars.com/sites/...Sheet-2014.pdf

Taylor ES systems have an LED on the preamp board to let you know if the battery is good (lighted means good) which combined with a relatively fancy EQ circuit consumes more power than the typical endpin preamp of Baggs or Fishman.

[RefrigRaider]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

30*1.5 + 4.3*6 = 70 hours

This reference states about 50 hours of ES2 battery life:

https://www.taylorguitars.com/sites/...Sheet-2014.pdf

Taylor ES systems have an LED on the preamp board to let you know if the battery is good (lighted means good) which combined with a relatively fancy EQ circuit consumes more power than the typical endpin preamp of Baggs or Fishman.

Thanks Jon! I appreciate your response.

[Stratcat77]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

30*1.5 + 4.3*6 = 70 hours

This reference states about 50 hours of ES2 battery life:

https://www.taylorguitars.com/sites/...Sheet-2014.pdf

This sounds about right for me. When I'm gigging (3-4 hour shows) twice a week, I usually change my battery about every 6-8 weeks. And I don't wait for it to completely die. When I sense my tone is changing I change it. For a couple of bucks, it's well worth it for me.

[RefrigRaider]

Originally Posted by Stratcat77

This sounds about right for me. When I'm gigging (3-4 hour shows) twice a week, I usually change my battery about every 6-8 weeks. And I don't wait for it to completely die. When I sense my tone is changing I change it. For a couple of bucks, it's well worth it for me.

I think I'm just going to stay on the safe side and change it monthly regardless. It's now officially in my Giggle calendar