Vintage Effects / Power

[craig123]

Hi all.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how to power up a board of vintage effects, mainly 60's and 70's that can only be powered by 9v batteries?

I want to be able to use a dedicated power source thats safe but do not want to modify any of the pedals themselves. Most of the pedals only have the regular 9v battery clip and have no other power source connections.

I have a few ideas myself but want to be sure that in trying them out, they would be safe so I was wondering if anyone out there has been in a similar situation or has any sure fire ways of getting power to a bunch of old effects safely.

Thanks,

Craig123

[R.G.]

The biggest problem you face is how to get a wire through the case. Otherwise, you'll have to beam power in.

I would make up new bottom panels for all of them. Some sheet metal and an afternoon or two of work with shears or nibbler and a file should get that done. Then drill a hole where wires can come out. Better yet, nibble a notch on one end or side so you don't have to poke cable ends through.

That being done, make yourself up some cables. On one end is a 9V battery clip and on the other is a female receptacle for a common 5.5mm/2.1mm Boss style power plug. Clip the new 9V battery clip to the old 9V battery clip, and wire the female connector so the 2.1mm inside connector goes to negative and the outer barrel goes to positive. Check extra carefully to make sure that you have the + end of the external plug connected to the original + battery clip and - to -. Otherwise, you may kill your pedals from reverse polarity when you power them.

You're ready to apply power, but before you do that, note carefully which pedals have the negative side of the original battery connected to signal ground and which ones have the positive side of the original battery connected to signal ground. You must power the negative-side-grounded pedals from one external power supply, and the positive-side-grounded pedals from another power supply. Otherwise, the signal ground shorts out the power supplies.

[craig123]

Thanks, Vintage Pedals

Hi, Thanks for that. I can totally understand the idea, it's a good one but unfortunatley my electronics abilities are slight. If I could do those things then I know it would work as that's the best solution by far, I've heard so far.

Even though my abilities are few I did realise that there might have to be two power supplies. I'm just wondering if it could be done with a daisy chain idea and some battery eliminators assuming I know the correct polarity of the pedals?

Like, what if I just daisy chained all the pedals up with eliminators, somehow?

Much thanks,

Craig123

[R.G.]

Hi, Thanks for that. I can totally understand the idea, it's a good one but unfortunatley my electronics abilities are slight. If I could do those things then I know it would work as that's the best solution by far, I've heard so far.

Even though my abilities are few I did realise that there might have to be two power supplies. I'm just wondering if it could be done with a daisy chain idea and some battery eliminators assuming I know the correct polarity of the pedals?

Like, what if I just daisy chained all the pedals up with eliminators, somehow?

Craig123

It is possible to do if you use two daisy chains, one for positive ground, one for negative ground and two power supplies (what I think you mean by battery eliminators).

There is no possible connection using one daisy chain and one power supply/eliminator which will not short out. You MUST separate the power supplies into at least two: positive ground versus negative ground.

There are other, more technically involved things which can be done, but those are more complex. The simple thing is - two 9V power supply adapters, two daisy chain power cables.

[Brad1]

R.G.,

Assuming he does something like that, I wonder if it would be a good idea to steer him towards an adequately powered supply? Would a Boss-type multi-supply provide enough?

How many pedals is "a bunch", and what are they likely to need, overall?

Just thought I'd throw that in, just in case he tried to connect a bunch of stuff off one possibly underpowered supply.

Do you have any suggestions about that for him?

Bard1

[craig123]

Thanks, Vintage Power

Hi all, thanks for that. There would be at least 20+ pedals on the board, it's a big one.

I can totally agree with seperating the power supplies but first have to determine which effect is either + or - based

This is the problem I face, as it can be daunting if you have limited electronics experience. But I really like the idea about building new base plates and making up new wires. This seems like it would work but I would need further direction in trying this out, Maybe somebody can draw me a diagram or something.

Anyway,

Thanks,

Craig123

[R.G.]

R.G.,

Assuming he does something like that, I wonder if it would be a good idea to steer him towards an adequately powered supply? Would a Boss-type multi-supply provide enough?

How many pedals is "a bunch", and what are they likely to need, overall?

Just thought I'd throw that in, just in case he tried to connect a bunch of stuff off one possibly underpowered supply.

Do you have any suggestions about that for him?

Bard1

Actually, I do. The company I work for, Visual Sound, makes a very capable supply. It's called the 1Spot, taken from the idea that it only takes up one position in a terminal strip, not two or three like an ordinary wall-wart.

The 1Spot provides from 0 to 1,700 milliamperes of regulated 9Vdc. This is enough for some huge professional pedalboards. It's under $25 in the USA, sometimes significantly under that if you get the right dealer in the right mood. I would suggest something like this for the main power supply, which is mostly going to be negative ground pedals. Visual Sound also sells daisy chain cables and adapters to pedals which may have odd plug formats.

Another 1Spot would work fine for the positive ground pedals, but since there are probably fewer of them, so would an electrically smaller (but probably physically bigger) adapter which could produce maybe 200-300ma of 9V. It is critically important to get regulated adapters, or the ripple hum will be unendurable.

The 1Spot preceeds my tenure at Visual Sound, so I can take no credit for it; I just think it's a good product.

The Boss PSA series is a kind of standard for pedalboard power supplies. It is rated for 200 milliamperes of 9Vdc, and sells for about the same price as a 1Spot. There are others.

[Steve Conner]

Hi R.G.,

I always wondered about that myself too, how many power supplies you need for a large pedalboard. I thought you might need multiple isolated ones to avoid ground loops. It's good to hear that you can get by with one +9V and one -9V.

To tell if a pedal is + or - ground, I would suggest you remove the battery, insert the instrument lead to turn the switch on, and use an ohm meter to measure between the ring of the instrument jack lead, and each one of the battery clip terminals in turn. One of them will show up as a dead short: that's the ground.

[R.G.]

Hi R.G.,
I always wondered about that myself too, how many power supplies you need for a large pedalboard. I thought you might need multiple isolated ones to avoid ground loops. It's good to hear that you can get by with one +9V and one -9V.

It works in many situations, not in all. As you would guess, the larger the loop area of the grounding connections, the more actual ground loop voltage appears. One power supply per pedal will enforce no ground loops by eliminating the loops. It's a slam-dunk solution, but you can often get away with fewer power supplies in normal situations and especially with small numbers of pedals.

Where you really get slammed is if a couple of the pedals in a pedalboard have their own AC line power cord, like some of the old EH stuff. A little leakage there and you'll be fighting hum forever.

I did a how-to on making an integrated many-way power supply, including rewinding a transformer to do it, but Ted Weber at Weber speakers sells an eight output transformer for about US$15.00, so it's hardly worth it to do the rewinding.

A really touchy situation that people get into with grounds is using more than one amp. Sometimes you can get rid of that by forcing the ground voltage difference to be common mode in one side with an opamp, but transformer isolation is much better.

[52 Bill]

Here's an old idea to recycle.

Just thought I'd pass this along.

Back in the 70's (I think) there was a company marketing a power supply for FX pedals that used the ring connector of the input jack to power non-power jack pedals.

I've got quite a few old pedals that do not have PS jacks on them, as well as a bunch of old EH and DOD pedals that use 1/8" phone jacks. I've converted them to work with a power supply by feeding the 9 volts into the input jack's ring connector. To make it work, I install a battery clip with a diode wired for polarity protection, in place of the battery. Now the ring connector of the input jack becomes an input to the B+ (or B-) of the FX circuit. Then I use a 1/4" stereo input plug, with a separate wire from the ring connector to my regulated power supply.

This way you can leave the pedal un-modified and you don't need to replace bottom panels. I place a small sticker on the bottom of any of my pedals that have been set-up this way, noting polarity and voltage. This method will only work with pedals that use a stereo jack (input or output) to complete the ground connection of the battery. Therefore it will not work on certain vintage pedals like Fuzz Faces or Mosrite Fuzz Rites without modifications.

Bill