1. The Digital Blower
  2. Roland Aerophone Mini - Adding a mini voltmeter

Roland Aerophone Mini - Adding a mini voltmeter

Gianluca Barbaro

Aerophone Mini Hacking Modding Roland Roland Aerophone

With the Aerophone Mini, Roland wants us to use rechargeable AA batteries only. From the user manual:

    If you are using the Aerophone mini on batteries, insert four Ni-MH batteries (AA).

I am not against the idea (that Roland pursues in many of their products) that there is no internal lithium battery, but only AA batteries: if you intend to use the instrument in a live situation, when you run out of power you can change them in 30 seconds. On the contrary, with an internal lithium battery you would have to connect a charging cable, which could be less than ideal on a stage during a live performance.

It is odd, though, that no recharging feature is provided with the Aerophone Mini: you have to use an external battery charger and consequently have at least two sets of batteries (or plug a USB cable during recharge). It would have been far better to be able to recharge the batteries directly with the USB cable.

That said, there is a possible drawback when using rechargeable AA batteries: in time, they tend to hold the charge less and less, and after a few recharging cycles they can suddenly drop the power. The Aerophone Mini starts blinking a led when the battery charge is low, but how long they will last depends on the state of health of the batteries. 

So I decided to install a small voltmeter, taking the idea from Gonzo Projects. I took mine from Amazon (for example this one).

The installation steps are:

  1. Open up the Aerophone Mini and solder a couple of wires on the two battery poles (I didn't want to mess with the battery compartment, so I decided to solder the wires internally).

  2. Make a small rectangle cut on the battery compartment cover (I used a mini rotary tool). Mind the size!

  3. Make a small hole right under the cut (for the button).

  4. Connect (solder) one wire directly to the voltmeter, the other one to a micro push button (see image below), and then from the switch to the voltmeter (the other pole).

  5. Put everything in place and fix it with some hot glue.

The result is that, by pressing the push button, you can always know the current voltage of your battery set.


EDIT 2020/07/14: See also my new article Tweaking the Aerophone Mini


Leggi il prossimo

Aerophone Mini - Internals