Power supply problem - pedals flashing on and off

nonesuch

I’m using a JOYO ‘Power Supply 2 JP-02’ connected to sometimes 8 or 9 pedals. 

If I have a lot of pedals connected, when I first power up a lot of the pedals start flashing on and off for a few seconds before everything settles down. Everything seems to work fine after the initial weirdness.

It’s got 7x100ma outputs and 1x500mA.

There’s a couple of higher powered digital pedals, but the total current draw should be a lot less the the maximum output of the power supply.

Anyway my question is - will this do any harm to the pedals? I’m not too keen on it to be honest.

Any recommendations on a different/better power supply I could use? All my pedals are standard 9V.

Thanks.

ecc83

I very much doubt anything is getting harmed. The flashing is almost certainly due to the JOYO going into current limit mode beacause it is being asked to charge a whole bank of large capacitors. Once charged thing are fine.

Dave.

nonesuch

Yeah I wasn't too sure. It's the clicking on and off you can hear as well, which is off-putting!

Would it be useful to have the more power hungry pedals on a separate supply?

Gagaryn

The 7 100ma are probably limited to 100ma each so whether or not your overall load is less than the theoretical max output you will continue to have issues I would have thought. I'd be tempted to buy a power supply that is a better match for your board. Plenty of options tailored to high demand digital pedals.

nonesuch

Yes there are 7x100mA, but I've got the Flashback Delay into the 500mA output. (Flashback Delay, Polara Reverb and Boss RC-3 Looper are my digital pedals). In theory that should be alright shouldn't it?

Basically what I'm really trying to say is - would a more expensive power supply be better for my setup?!

MattBanshee

8 or 9 pedals, including more than one digital pedal, is probably too much for a supply with a 1.2A output.

hotpickups

Not enough juice . I had this problem too once and had to power one of my strymons with a separate power supply 

ICBM

Sounds like one or more of the pedals has a startup current that’s too high for the supply. If it’s going into self-protection it must be right on the limit of what it can handle. Although in theory it should be able to do this indefinitely I wouldn’t count on it.

Octafish

@ICBM - Looking at the Digitech spec on the Polara it lists both "Power Consumption @ <75mA" and "Current Draw @ 125 mA". Is the 'current draw' figure with regards to startup?

crunchman

Some digital pedals do draw more current at startup.

It does sound like it's struggling.  I'd just get something a bit more beefy.  I had problems with noise on one power supply once it got above about half of its quoted maximum draw, so even if a power supply is functioning, that doesn't mean you couldn't improve things with a better supply.

I'm using a Decibel 11 Hot Stone Deluxe these days - had it a few years now, and it has been really good.  Powering 2 big Strymons, plus a POG2, and drives, compressor etc.  There are other options from companies like Cioks, Strymon, Gigrig, but the Hot Stone Deluxe is a bit cheaper than most of those.

nonesuch

@Octafish - I thought the Polara was 75mA, but you’re right it is 125mA, so I shouldn’t be trying to connect that to one of the 100mA outputs. Not sure about the Flashback Delay - the spec says >100mA which is a bit vague.

Adding up all the pedals, I work it out to be approximately 500mA, and the JOYO power supply is rated at 1A. So it seems there should be enough power, but like @ICBM and @crunchman say - the startup current must be causing problems.

Do I need to be looking at a power supply that has a 2 or 3 higher current outputs (200/300mA) that can be connected to the digital pedals?

Thanks for all the advice.

crunchman

I'd just get a good one that can cover all eventualities.  If you get something that can cover what you use now, you might still get caught short if there is some all singing all dancing digital pedal that you decide you want a year or two down the line.  I had a BBE Supa-charger, which was a good supply, but didn't have anything like enough to cope with my Timeline when I bought the Timeline.  You don't necessarily know what GAS you will have in the future, so I'd get something that would be able to cope with future GAS.

I'd want a couple of 300mA outputs as minimum, possibly 400mA.  Where it gets a bit iffy is where some big digital pedals say they want 500mA in the official literature, but you search online and find that they only draw somewhere around 300mA in real life, and a bit more while starting up.  You will probably get away with 300mA for pretty much every pedal out there if it's a high quality supply that can handle 350mA for a few seconds at startup, but getting something that does 400mA might be better.

Obviously, you want to make sure that the outputs are properly isolated.

nonesuch

OK thanks.
It looks like the Decibel 11 Hot Stone Deluxe isn't available anymore. Annoyingly I think Andertons had it on special offer fairly recently.
I'll start looking at some other options.

crunchman

nonesuch said:

OK thanks.
It looks like the Decibel 11 Hot Stone Deluxe isn't available anymore. Annoyingly I think Andertons had it on special offer fairly recently.
I'll start looking at some other options.

Don't know if they have discontinued it.

Mansons have a second hand one at £99

https://www.mansons.co.uk/product/pre-owned-decibel-eleven-hot-stone-deluxe-power-supply-10883

They are offering 3 months warranty on it.  Would be worth checking if it comes with all the cables though.

nonesuch

Thanks - I'll have a look.

I'm also thinking about either a Truetone 1 SPOT Pro CS6 or CS7. They look fairly decent. 

The CS6 has a lower profile which is probably more what I'm after.

http://truetone.com/cs6/

thermionic

I've recently bought a Cioks DC8 and I'm very pleased with it. I'm running a Polara and Line DL-4 off the two 300mA outputs, with analog pedals (2 in parallel if needed) on the 100mA outputs. Haven't tried the Polara off the 100mA output though. I love the Cioks stuff, it's so well thought-out, electronically and physically (especially if you use it with a Pedaltrain.)

nonesuch

nonesuch

nonesuch

nonesuch

nonesuch