Electronic – How to determine what capacitance is required for eliminating humming noise

guitar-pedalmainsnoisepower supply

I've got power supply (transformer based) 9V powering modelling guitar effect processor. That noise gets amplified and it hurts.

Humming noise is 100Hz rectified mains. Processor takes 300mA 9V (500mA rated). Unfortunately I cannot tell ripple voltage (don't have an oscilloscope).

Is there any equation for calculating capacitance needed to eliminate the noise?

When I was studying step-up/down switching regulator IC datasheets, I saw the formula: coef**current*time_on/Ripple_voltage. But is contains coefficient, which is different from datasheet to datasheet.

Best Answer

Any cap above 670uF would do their job, like 1000uF, and also remember to use always a higher rated voltage, like 16V in this case.

I calculated it in this way: With 0.3A and 9V power consumption we can treat your device like an equivalent resistance of 30 Ohms. Like in RC low-pass filters, we could determine their filtering frequency using 4 times tau to get away any 50 Hz or other harmonic of your mains frequency.

This is 4*tau=4*R*C -> 0.08=4*30*C -> C = 667uF

I always have in my toolbox a pair of handy 2200 uF 16V in case I need it :)