Elektron Musical Instruments

Uhm... We have actually not heard of many power supplies for the 
SidStation breaking down. Maybe one or a few over the years, but 
that's like a part of a percent of all the ones that has been 
shipped out.

And I would say that the SidStation actually draws quite low amount 
of current, only around 250-300mA normally (although we specify the 
requierment a bit higher because the PSU's usually drops their 
voltage a bit if you draw current up to their specification).

As for being "always on" that's not the whole true. Sure, the 
transforming core is connected, but if there is nothing drawing 
current in the other end that should at least in theory mean that 
there is no effect developed. In practice however there is a small 
effect generated because of that materials are not perfect. You 
should only get a few watts out of it though, just enough to warm 
your feets a cold winter day.

As a sumary: You should not need to exchange your SidStation PSU 
regularily, even though you keep it plugged in the wall.

Daniel

PS. It's debatable which practice keeps your gear alive the longest -
 if you keep them switched on, or if you switch them off an on on a 
regular basis. If you keep it on all the time, the heat generated 
might dry the capacitors up, and stuff in general might get older 
more quickly. However, switching the stuff off and on gets the 
components cycling between cold and warm, and that might tear them 
even quicker! I think most studios with old stuff keeps them 
switched on all the time. 

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "technoweeniepas" 
<heitert@h...> wrote:
> The power supplys are external and the sid station does use a 
rather 
> high amount of amps condidering.  It is hard to find external 
> wallwart style power supplys that give a nice clean power source 
so I 
> can see the radio shack one referenced in the other reply causing 
> issues.  As for the needing to be replaced every few years that is 
> debatable.  The trick is thus...a standard power supply such as 
those 
> in a computer or most synths have a power switch that cuts the 
power 
> pre transformer and power supply...a piece of electronics that 
uses a 
> wallwart style of power supply can only shut off the power post 
> transformer and power supply...this in effect means that the power 
> supply is always on even though the synth is turned off.  The 
longer 
> a piece of electronics is on the greater the chance it will 
> fail...thats just life...so yeah they burn out faster than an 
> internal style but a good quality one should last quite some time.
> 
> -Pas
>