Bill is soo right!!
It appears some people assume 'switching supplies' are able to adjust to any voltage.

VERY WRONG assumption!!

Switching supplies use electronic components that 'open' and 'close' circuits when needed, directly from the mains-supply. No transformer is needed what makes it possible te build hi-capacity in small- low weight units.

I cannot understand why PSR S900 is supplied with PA 300 AC power adaptor , 100/240v 50/60Hz and the top model T3 comes with mono voltage; just no sense .
Chico

Good point Diki, one I didn't think of. And a very valid one too I will add. I sometimes make the mistake of assuming everyone knows the same stuff, which of course they don't.
So no m8, it's all good here. You were correct to pull that one up.

As for why Yamaha do it, I suspect you are right, in that it allows them to more closely regulate various sales regions.

Why they then ALLOW this to happen with their pro gear could be that the pro gear has much much more competition and if they restricted the power supplies they would lose sales to other manufacturers.

And Bill, in my experience (and I was also advised this by an electrician) a switching power supply and a universal power supply are one and the same thing.

I should have said in my earlier post, a Universal Switching Power supply, just to make it clear.

I believe they all are actually full 250voltAC(the maximum in any country) supplies, with filters controlled by the switches that regulate how much current is allowed to pass onto the DC output stage.

However, I am always open to learning new things, and if you have evidence to the contrary I'll be the first to say I was mistaken.

Cheers
Dennis

Hmm... not sure about that Dennis. I think the competition is just as fierce in the Arranger arena as it is in the Workstation arena. To be sure, ALL Big Three manufacturers who sell both, i.e. Korg, Roland, and Yamaha, sell MORE Workstations overall than they do Arrangers, excluding low end arrangers which only Yamaha really sells in abundance, selling boat loads of them around the world and nonetheless makes up a sizeable portion of Yamaha Music Divisions bottom line.

OTOH, the reason I think the pro Workstations have switchable power supplies is because a considerable amount of Pro's use them. All of the "big name" bands in particular use pro Workstations from mostly Korg, Roland, and Yamaha, (amongst a few other brands). Since Big Name "Bands" do a lot of 'touring', and not only stateside, but internationally, a switchable power supply is a must have proposition for them.

Vice versa, Arrangers (at least Yamaha's anyway) are considered an "unprofessional" 'home' keyboard product, therefore a switchable power supply is not considered a necessity in Yammie's eyes apparently. OTOH, Korg considers both the Pa2XPRO and Pa800 as professional products, that are used by professionals. That is why the Korg arrangers have the switchable power supplies in my opinion.

Of course we all know that the Yamaha Motif line is considered a "pro"fessional Workstation, both by Yamaha and keyboardists alike. Therefore since the Motif's are used by professionals (big name bands in particular) the Motif's therefore have the switchable power supplies. Big name professionals would in NO WAY, put up with anything less in my opinion. OTOH, the Tyros3 gets shoved aside and relegated to a "home hobbyist" mentality (by its sheer lack of Pro features) and therefore Yamaha neglects the truly professional features that are required by the true professional. Because in reality, it is only a "home" keyboard and is marketed as such by Yamaha. And when I say "lack of PRO features" I mean lacks a "real" Sampler, professional sounding Drum Kits, 76/88 keys, Micro-Editable full fledged Sequencer including a sizable amount of user memory, XLR I/O's, S/Pdif I/O's, Pro-rated build quality, etc.

Now the Tyros3 does have going for it what no other arranger or even workstation currently has and that is SA2 voices. But they are few and far between i.e. (11 in total and some of them are just variations of the same waveform). But I'm sure some of the other Voices on the Tyros3, in fact quite a few of them really, are highly professional sounding. But when it comes to features, the T3 lacks the gumption of what would be considered a truly professional product suitable for true professionals; and hence the reason Yamaha markets the T3 to mainly the keyboard home hobbyist segment of society. And again, is the main reason why Yamaha doesn't give the T3 a switchable power supply in my opinion.

Best,
Mike

PS: Maybe that was the central idea you were getting at too Dennis. Maybe I just mis-interpreted it.


[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 10-14-2008).]

Yes, good points Mike..Pretty accurate observations, and yes, more or less what I was alluding to .

Dennis

Hi Dennis

Here is a pretty good description of how a switched power supply works. (Not as accurate as the technical text I normally used for work, but at least it’s pretty easy to understand)

As you can see, unless it’s designed for dual voltage input, (More expensive) then only 1 input voltage is allowed. (There is a Big difference between a switch mode power supply and a universal switch mode power supply, therefore as was previously mentioned, do not assume anything)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply

Bill

Just to reduce the level of confusion: This voltage and frequency range is printed on the back of my Pa800 and I know from a reliable source that the Pa2X is similar. So no guesswork here

Kind regards,
Tommy


[This message has been edited by TommyF (edited 10-15-2008).]

Also there is this paragraph from the same document.......

"Switched-mode PSUs in domestic products such as personal computers often have universal inputs, meaning that they can accept power from most mains supplies throughout the world, with rated frequencies from 50 Hz to 60 Hz and voltages from 100 V to 240 V (although a manual voltage "range" switch may be required)."

As I said, I should have worded my previous post as a "universal switched mode power supply"

Look, all it was, was a simple case of I missed Lee7's post which said the Tyros 3 had a fixed power supply.

But having said that, and based on that Wiki (thanks for the link btw), I will now refer to them as "Universal Switched Power Supplies" so there is no confusion in what I mean.

Dennis