In another thread entitled
Budget isolated power supply I mentioned that I was building a budget (everything) pedalboard, just to see how cheaply I could do it. I tried a 1-Spot but the pedals hummed like mad so I started looking for an isolated power supply. I settled on the Fame DCT-200 which I found at
DV247 for around £39 shipped and it arrived after a couple of days. Here's the review.
In the box (picture below) was the PSU itself, a UK kettle-lead, a Euro kettle-lead, 10 x short power leads, 10 x long power leads, 2 x old-style Boss power leads (one long, one short) and a Line 6 power lead.
The unit itself feels really solid. I can't find out where it was manufactured but for the price, it has to be made in China. It's a pressed-steel cover with the power input and switch on the back and the pedal connectors on the front. Compared to other PSUs I've seen the first thing to jump out is that it's tall. I've put in a picture of a Polytune just for scale (picture below). I'm going to have to raise the back of the pedalboard quite high up if I want to fix this underneath it.
There are 8 x 9V DC power outputs, 1 x 12V DC and 1 x 12V AC (picture below). I'm assuming the 12V AC is for Line 6 units but I haven't linked it up to my M13 yet. Each of the DC ports supplies 100mA apart from ports 5 and 6 which supply 250mA for more power-hungry pedals. All of the outputs are centre-core negative. None of the supplied leads allows a change to centre-core positive should you have an odd pedal. I'll come to the two pots next.
The unit is actually adjustable with DIP switches (picture below). When set to normal, the outputs are described as above. When set to on, outputs 1-4 supply 12.3V at 60mA, output 5 supplies 14.5V at 50mA, output 6 12V at 200mA outputs 7-8 are adjustable with the pots between 4V and 9V at 100mA. The AC ports remain the same. All my pedals are only 9V but this seems pretty good for those odd pedals that don't take a standard voltage.
I have hooked it up to my cheapo pedals (a mixture of Joyo, Nux and Digitech) just to try it out and it clearly is isolated as the hum I had with the 1-Spot has completely disappeared. The manual also claims that as well as each output being isolated they also have short-circuit protection. With a total supply of 1600mA, 9V DC, 12V DC and 12V AC as well as the non-standard setting, this thing seems a bargain at the price.
Comments
Your link didn't work, try this ...
www.dv247.com/guitars/fame-dct-200-multi-output-power-supply--204885
:-/
Don't you just love the internet!
[It seems the problem with mine was a rogue 'http//' as well.]
I'm glad I was proved wrong. This looks like a lot of power supply for the money.
Great review buddy!
Is it still working?!
Ben