Reversing the external Power supply input on a reverse Polarity pedal

Axe_meister

This may be a quick one.

As we all know you get the odd pedal with reverse Polarity, e.g. an octavia style pedal.

Which means you can't daisy chain these. with normal pedals. Now I was wondering could you reverse the polarity on

the actual power connector on the pedal. i.e. if it is wired to the PCB, break the connection and then just reverse the wires

with the pedal itself, so -ve is connected to the +ve on the PCB and the +ve to the negative? 

Or is the only way to do this is to have a power supply with isolated outputs?

ICBM

You can't daisy chain it with 'normal' pedals no matter what, because it isn't the connector polarity that's the problem. Because normal pedals are negative *ground* (nothing to do with the plug) and vintage germanium pedals are positive ground, if you connect the two together on the same daisy chain you will have positive connected to negative via the ground, which will short the power supply.

Andyjr1515

I seem to remember getting a random stomp-box power supply once with loads of adaptor leads, including a 'reverse polarity' one which you plugged into the standard daisy or output but was internally reverse-wired so the plug that fitted into the pedal was t'other way round.  @ICBM wouldn't this do it OK or am I missing something staring me in the face? 

Andyjr1515

Ah...I think I might have seen the flaw.  My cable would probably work with a multi-out power supply, but not an actual daisy chain...

ICBM

Andyjr1515 said:

Ah...I think I might have seen the flaw.  My cable would probably work with a multi-out power supply, but not an actual daisy chain…

Yes exactly - or with a pedal that simply has reverse jack polarity (there are a few) while still being negative ground.

There are even a few pedals (eg Fulltone 69) which have conventional jack polarity but are positive ground! And so won't work on a daisy chain either.