Chapter 4: Battery and Power Management
Dark Fire’s power source is an on-board, rechargeable, Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) 7.4V battery. Dark Fire
can tune itself up to 500 times on a single charge, and recharges in about 70 minutes. Caution:
Because this battery is a precision device, please follow these instructions carefully on charging,
storage, and optimizing performance.
Charging Dark Fire’s Battery
To charge Dark Fire’s battery:
1. Connect the Dark Fire AC adapter to the Robot Guitar II Breakout Box's Power jack.
2. Using Dark Fire’s stereo cable, connect Dark Fire’s output jack to the Breakout Box’s Stereo
Input jack.
3. When charging begins, the Breakout Box’s blue LED shines brightly.
You may play Dark Fire while it charges; patch a standard guitar cable from the Breakout Box’s
Amplifier output to your guitar amp or monitoring system. Note: The Piezo pickup out and hex
outputs are not available while charging—only the magnetic pickups. However, Gibson
recommends shutting down the system (see later in this chapter) while charging to decrease the
charging time and increase battery life.
After the Battery is charged fully, the charging circuit switches to trickle charge mode to prevent
damage to the battery. The blue light remains on while trickle charging.
You can also charge Dark Fire with the RIP Computer Interface. Refer to its manual for details.
Monitoring the Charging Process
To monitor the charging process while in any Bank with the charger connected:
1. If the MCK isn’t already pulled out, pull it out and turn it to the C LED (to help remember this,
think “Charging”).
2. Press on the MCK’s Display Matrix for more than 2 seconds.
3. Observe the Display Matrix. If the red / yellow / green bars are scrolling up (moving), charging
is occurring. If they only stay lit at a low level, Dark Fire is not charging. In this case,
disconnect Dark Fire's stereo cable and reconnect. You will see one of the following:
Scrolling two red bars = continue charging because the charge is still low
Scrolling two red / two yellow bars = continue charging, charge is mid to low level
Scrolling red-yellow-one green bar = continued charging optional, level is high to full
already
Scrolling red-yellow-two green bars = fully charged, disconnect and switch off Dark Fire
All red-yellow-green bars stay lit = fully charged, disconnect and switch off Dark Fire.
Gibson Dark Fire 4.0 manual, page 19
To Next Page
Loading...
