The Yamaha crew would presumably read these forums

My suggestion is to use your experience as a reminder that YOU need to take action when you want to make sure something happens.

Don't rely on Yamaha to 'read these forums'.

Take the initiative and use the 'Contact Us' link at the bottom right of this page and let them know about your experience.

Hope you get your power supply soon.

my low battery warnings starting showing after only 2 hours

If you are using rechargeables, even new ones, make sure they are fully recharged before you use them. And then make sure you fully discharge them, fully charge them, fully discharge them, fully charge them, for a few cycles to get the best usage. That will make them last longer.

A battery's capacity (how long it lasts) is mostly specified by the mAh. What's the mAh spec for your batteries?

I do agree I would be unpleasantly surprised if a new keyboard didn't include a power supply. In fact, a Native Instruments MIDI controller I purchased didn't come with a power supply - it was something I had to buy after figuring out it didn't come with one. Although the MIDI controller powers on using a USB connection (and no separate power supply) - features are disabled when using USB power requiring the external power supply to get the full feature set. I wasn't happy about it - the problem was more with the hassle of ordering than the cost (which was a small tax vs. the price of the instrument). Still, it was a temporary pain point.

[quotePost id=122207]

My suggestion is to use your experience as a reminder that YOU need to take action when you want to make sure something happens.

Don't rely on Yamaha to 'read these forums'.

Take the initiative and use the 'Contact Us' link at the bottom right of this page and let them know about your experience.

[/quotePost]
I took action. I now have the power supply that was advertised. I'm not really that interested in contacting Yamaha directly about it, because what outcome would I be pursuing? I really just wanted to benchmark my expectations against other users to see if they were reasonable, and maybe give other prospective buyers a heads-up to check the fine print.

Yamaha can read the forums, or not read them. It's a cheap source of market insight, so if it were me, I would read them.

In this instance, what they would learn is that the level of goodwill (which has always been extremely high for me) has been moved down by a small notch, which isn't something a business wants to do too many times.

 

I'm not too sure what the capacity rating of my batteries was - I would suspect quite low, because they were just supermarket batteries that I had in the house. The only reason I used batteries at all was because after weeks of waiting eagerly, I found that I had no power - my most disappointing unboxing to date 😀

There used to be a user called Bill on this forum, who was a bit waspish, mildly patronizing, and used capitals a lot. Not sure whatever happened to him.

[quotePost id=122214]There used to be a user called Bill on this forum, who was a bit waspish, mildly patronizing, and used capitals a lot. Not sure whatever happened to him.[/quotePost]

Awesome. 🙂 That gave me a smile today.

Using random batteries you already have gave you 1/2 of the specified max runtime. That's pretty good. There are high capacity (high mAh) batteries that would likely put you at or near the maximum spec of 4hrs. Whatever Yamaha used to come up with the max runtime is going to be a high performance battery (and probably not available at the local grocery store although Energizer has a premium battery you could probably get a hold of).

I know this doesn't solve anything. I think your usage would require more than 4 hrs in one session.

However, I just wanted to help out clear up the battery performance experience.

My CK61 came with a power supply. The batteries are ONLY for if you wanted to go outside NOT for all around normal use. That's just stupid if Yamaha were to actually think you are going to use batteries instead of a real power supply that cost them $5 to add it. I returned my CK but there was nothing to the power supply, light as a feather plastic with tiny wire. Had mine come without a power supply I would have contacted the dealer and Yamaha etc. for an explanation and complaint for sure. Probably would have returned it for that as well just because it's stupid. Massive industry leader music company can't include a $5 power supply. Maybe someone opened it and forgot to put it back. Dealers claim that they are required to open every box to confirm contents. Also make certain you look inside the custom fitted forms because they hide that stuff internally. It's so light and small you might toss it in the garbage. Has trash pickup happened yet?

I believe that Adrian mentioned he now has the power supply so batteries are not an issue.

Yes, it's poor form that a power supply wasn't included, especially for the price you pay. It's not a $100 keyboard we're talking about.

I'm in Australia. My CK88 came with two stickers: one said "AC adapter: not included", but a sticker on the other side said "This unit has been opened for correction to Australian voltage". Mine came with a third-party generic power supply.