Feeding house power to a Boss FS-6 foot pedal.

[The Dude]

Ahhhh,............just actually took the time to look at the pedal and realized that it does not have the typical Boss power jack- battery only. Ignore my info about the negative tip polarity. We are dealing with a battery clip here not an adaptor plug. My bad.

[bowesj]

It appears that most Long & McQuade stores (and some other musical outlets) stock something that can likely do the trick. Long & McQuade sells it for $15.25 in store (saving roughly $12.90 in Amazon shipping costs). You can zoom right in on the Long-McqQade link below to see its label very clearly. You can see it has a 2nd model number, 41-9-200R in addition to the ECB-003. The specs below from the first link say it is 5% regulated. Since it is meant for a Wah Wah pedal (and the company says it can be used for any of their pedals) it is probably well filtered. Details below.

Description:
The Dunlop ECB-003 is a 9V power supply for Dunlop effects pedals. It features 9 volts of DC current with a negative center.
The ECB-003 provides the correct power supply for Dunlop pedals. It is also compatible with any pedal needing an 9vdc power supply. Dunlop's high quality components and attention to detail allow you to use the ECB-003 with confidence -in the studio or on stage.

Features:
9V DC @ 200mA 5% regulated.
2.1mm x 5.5mm + Barrel negative center.

Dunlop Dunlop AC Adapter Barrel 9-volt U.S. - Long & McQuade Musical Instruments

Cry Baby Wah Wah pedal.
Amazon.com: Dunlop 535Q Multi-Wah Crybaby Pedal: Musical Instruments

[52 Bill]

That should be fine for your pedal. All you need is a battery clip adapter and you are good to go.

Be certain that the battery clip adapter connects the positive to the correct clip terminal and the negative to the correct clip terminal. Perhaps the folks at Long and McQuade can sell you both items and check the polarity for you before you leave the store.

[bowesj]

I picked up the Dunlop AC Adapter from Long & McQuade, wired it up and it is working now (no noise at all so it must be well filtered). Getting the polarity correct was actually pretty straight forward by simply thinking of the power supply as just a battery in my mind and knowing the power supply's connector outside was positive and the center was negative.

I didn't bother cutting the AC adapter wire. I just got some speaker wire, cut it to length, then soldered it to the the battery clip which I took out of the old battery. On the other end I bent back the negative exposed wire against the plastic outer sleeve and slipped the wire and sleeve into the center piece of the AC adapter connector. Next I wrapped the positive exposed wire around the outer part of the AC adapter connector and tapes it with electrical tape. It is making very good contact.

So it is getting proper power.

Update================
This morning I watched two videos on soldering. I soldered correctly when I was young but have slipped in my skills from lack of use. The videos have inspired me and I may use the knowledge from the videos to do the job correctly this weekend.

[52 Bill]

Glad to hear that you are making progress. I would suggest that eventually you cut and solder the battery clip to the adapter as a tape held connection will fail.

[bowesj]

Thanks Bill. I did it the way I did it for these combined reasons,

1. being in a rush.
2. fear of not being sure if there would be a red wire to tell me positive from negative
3. because I have an old needle type multi-meter that could get damaged if I get the polarity wrong.
4. the documentation told me the plug was a negative center and positive outside so I knew for sure.

Here is the problem. I could be wrong but I vaguely seem to remember situations where I have stripped wire and only found a black and white rather than a red and black. I tried looking this up on the web but it was poorly explained with only a mention of red, black and green and no mention of white. I guess I could ask no matter what I found. If someone knows of a web page that explains all the situations I would love to read it. I do know that speaker wire is marked on one side (sometimes red) so that the user can get the stereo speakers in phase with each other (in other words not all situations are the same and maybe I am remembering black and white which applies to a different situation).

[bowesj]

I went for it. I made the same assumption this link suggests (that the stripped white line is positive). What I am saying is I made the assumption before seeing this link.
http://electronics.stackexchange.com...-wire-indicate

Unfortunately the stripped wire was the negative wire and the 47 year old multi-meter no longer gives an accurate reading in volts. (9 volts reads at about 10.5 volts because the needle moved when it tried to go backwards). Oh well. At least the Boss FS-6 still works and I can still use the multi-meter to test polarity - LOL. I probably won't replace it. I will just through out batteries that don't work (Much cheaper).

I went looking for cheap volt meters and it appears you can get the needle type for $24 or so. It is probably wise to get a digital considering this story. I am assuming all digital types will survive something like this but then again I have not owned every one that exists so maybe I am wrong.

[Steve A.]

Here is a link to the owner's manual which would have cleared up most of the questions here.
I like to fiddle around with things so I would probably have just added an spst switch in series with the black battery lead to the input jack.

http://media.rolandus.com/manuals/FS-6_OM.pdf

Steve A.