Radial Distortion pedal keeps dying. Help!

scarry67

Radial Bones Fullerton Tonebone pedal, which I bought used at a good price on ebay a while ago, cuts out every 5-10 minutes. It's powered by a cheap 9V psu along with a compressor and OD pedal. It can't be battery powered. Is it likely to be internal issue or psu problem? Says PSU + c - 9-12VDC 100mA by power input. Once it stops working a press on the switch brings it back on again... Any help appreciated.

wibble

A 100mA PSU is too weedy to power 3 pedals!

Does it do it when it's just powering the tonebone alone?

I would try it with another higher rated PSU first.

ICBM

scarry67 said:

Radial Bones Fullerton Tonebone pedal, which I bought used at a good price on ebay a while ago, cuts out every 5-10 minutes. It's powered by a cheap 9V psu along with a compressor and OD pedal. It can't be battery powered. Is it likely to be internal issue or psu problem? Says PSU + c - 9-12VDC 100mA by power input. Once it stops working a press on the switch brings it back on again... Any help appreciated.

Sounds like it's either got a faulty switch (common on Radials) or there's a bad joint somewhere else which is being disturbed by the switch click.

Does tapping the casing or clicking the other switch bring it back?

wibble said:

A 100mA PSU is too weedy to power 3 pedals!

No it isn't. Most analogue non-modulation pedals only draw 10-20mA at most.

In any case I think he means that's the requirement printed on the Radial.

scarry67

Now experimenting with just powering the Radial and it seems to be staying on - will continue to tap & click, ICBM, and see what happens. It "dies" without any use of the switch but then powers up immediately if I press the switch back on. 

ICBM

scarry67 said:

Now experimenting with just powering the Radial and it seems to be staying on - will continue to tap & click, ICBM, and see what happens. It "dies" without any use of the switch but then powers up immediately if I press the switch back on. 

Were you using a daisy-chain cable to power it and the other pedals? It could also be a bad contact between the daisy-chain plug and the pedal, or a fault in the cable. Sometimes these things are microscopically sensitive to vibration if there's a tiny break which is almost touching.

scarry67

Yep - cheap daisy chain cable to 3 pedals. The Radial seems to be holding up well now when psu is straight in without other pedals/daisy chain connector. Good news on pedal front although I may need to reinvest in some better cabling. The £7.99 Amazon psu with daisy chain may have been a false economy...

Thanks for tips.