For years my best (only) recording mic was a PL76A. Evevtually I replaced it
with a Chinese LDC which works fine for me. Lately I kinda missed the warm sound of the PL76A so I dug it out, but couldn't find a suitable battery for it. The AA bat didn't sound all that good so I set about trying to figure out how to mod it to run on Phantom power. After a google search to find out if anyone else had already solved the problem ,I had no luck, but did find a bunch of articles about Phantom Power. It turned out to be a very easy mod. After opening up the batt cover, remove the mic connector. One screw but it is reverse threaded, so turn it CCW to make it sink into the connector. Pull out the connector carefully and attach fine flexible wires about 4" long to pins 2 and 3. Run these thru the hole to the batt compartment. Connect each wire to a 22K 1/8 watt resistor and connect the other ends of the resistors together. Solder the twisted leads from the resistors to the + terminal which used to be for the battery. Insulate everything with black tape, re-assemble and you are done. It is not as sensitive as a modern LDC and is a bit more noisey, but it works great. The parts list is pretty short. 2 ea 22K (more or less) resistors and 2 pieces of fine flexible wire. Radio shack has 5packs for about $1. Use an ohmmeter to be sure that the 2 resistors you select are as close as possible to the same value. This will minimize the noise.
Enjoy your reborn EV PL76A
chazba
with a Chinese LDC which works fine for me. Lately I kinda missed the warm sound of the PL76A so I dug it out, but couldn't find a suitable battery for it. The AA bat didn't sound all that good so I set about trying to figure out how to mod it to run on Phantom power. After a google search to find out if anyone else had already solved the problem ,I had no luck, but did find a bunch of articles about Phantom Power. It turned out to be a very easy mod. After opening up the batt cover, remove the mic connector. One screw but it is reverse threaded, so turn it CCW to make it sink into the connector. Pull out the connector carefully and attach fine flexible wires about 4" long to pins 2 and 3. Run these thru the hole to the batt compartment. Connect each wire to a 22K 1/8 watt resistor and connect the other ends of the resistors together. Solder the twisted leads from the resistors to the + terminal which used to be for the battery. Insulate everything with black tape, re-assemble and you are done. It is not as sensitive as a modern LDC and is a bit more noisey, but it works great. The parts list is pretty short. 2 ea 22K (more or less) resistors and 2 pieces of fine flexible wire. Radio shack has 5packs for about $1. Use an ohmmeter to be sure that the 2 resistors you select are as close as possible to the same value. This will minimize the noise.
Enjoy your reborn EV PL76A
chazba