power supply question

aswefallintostatic

Hey guys,  im a bit of a power supply noob, so i was wondering if you could help me out with a quick question:

I have a few strymon pedals (Bluesky, El cap) in my rig and unless they have their own separate power supply, when connected up to a daisy chain / cheap distributor (gigrig) then they make a hella buzzing noise. Its kind of irritating having to cary round additional power supplies etc just for these pedals, is there an alternative power brick of sorts that will avoid this issue? There seems to be a big jump in price between cheap distributors and something like a MXR DC power brick so i assume there are two types of technology...? Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers,

Tom

Fazer

those digitals dont like sharing or mixing with others, so you will have to think about investing in a brick type with isolated outputs, and enough high power outputs if you have lots of high amp/v pedals

joeyowen

I know it can seem like wasted money, but investing in a proper power supply (Trex/CIOKS/VoodooLabs/Dunlop plus more) is one of the smartest things you can do. The outputs are isolated which will help with the buzzing

I upgraded from a cheap 'brick' power supple to a CIOKS AC10, and everything just went better. No noise at all.

aswefallintostatic

@Fazer - thanks! Yeah, my rig is El Cap > Flashback > Ditto > Attenuator > Bluesky so basically having to take a 9v power supply for everything at the moment haha. Cool, i'll look in to a brick of some description. Any popular choices? or are they all basically the same thing...

TimmyO

Hi there - there is another approach here, as I had the same challenge.

Start with a Gigrig Generator (something like 5A total capacity), a Gigrig Distributor to neatly feed anything that doesn't need isolation, then add Gigrig isolators (eg a Timelord model for the El Cap) for each pedal that misbehaves when not isolated.

I managed to get 2 Timelords, Distributor, and Generator all underneath a pedal train Nano so it needn't take up too much room. The added advantage I found was that the transformer-based usual supplies (Pedal Power 2 etc) cause Wah noise which the Generator doesn't.  

aswefallintostatic

Thanks for the help guys!

Is there a danger of overpowering some pedals? the strymon stuff needs 250ma so if i get something capable of delivering that is there a chance that a pedal that only needs say 50ma like a fuzz would melt?

The Gig rig stuff looks like a good solution, but damn its expensive to set the whole rig up! If i can find a something on the £100 mark that would be perfect

joeyowen

Too much Voltage will damage

You are ok with MA, because the pedal will only draw what it needs

steamabacus

aswefallintostatic said:

Is there a danger of overpowering some pedals? the strymon stuff needs 250ma so if i get something capable of delivering that is there a chance that a pedal that only needs say 50ma like a fuzz would melt?

There is no danger of giving pedals 'too much power'. So long as you make sure they have the correct voltage with the correct polarity, they will only ever draw as much current as they need. The stated figures are maximum current draw. Note also that the figure on the psu itself is the maximum current that psu can supply - the actual draw from the pedal may be somewhat less.

This is a useful resource when working out how much power your pedals are drawing.

Fazer

i've got a cioks ac10 like joey above, but only because i occasionally need the 16v/ac, if you dont ever need that ac then i'd look at alternatives with more slots for dc and high drain dc

TimmyO

aswefallintostatic said:

Thanks for the help guys!

Is there a danger of overpowering some pedals? the strymon stuff needs 250ma so if i get something capable of delivering that is there a chance that a pedal that only needs say 50ma like a fuzz would melt?

The Gig rig stuff looks like a good solution, but damn its expensive to set the whole rig up! If i can find a something on the £100 mark that would be perfect

I know what you mean - but once you find supplies with multiple 250ma isolated outputs, you're spending a fair bit already.

You may get a used VoodooLabs Pedal Power 2+ - put the 'line 6' outputs in the correct mode and they do 250ma each

ICBM

It's actually quite useful to know that there are some pedals I need never even consider buying because of nonsense like this.

joeyowen

ICBM;323641" said:

It's actually quite useful to know that there are some pedals I need never even consider buying because of nonsense like this.

I agree to an extent (M13 wallwart sucked!) But I have never heard these complaints with Strymon stuff before. Maybe because I see a lot about themon TGP, where most users seem to have pretty decent power supplies I guess

hotpickups

I run my strymons from the voodoo lab PP2+. No noise issues at all

TimmyO

ICBM said:

It's actually quite useful to know that there are some pedals I need never even consider buying because of nonsense like this.

If you think about it it's pretty amazing that they have digital fx units this powerful running off 9v pedal supplies at all. 

ICBM

TimmyO said:

If you think about it it's pretty amazing that they have digital fx units this powerful running off 9v pedal supplies at all. 

Not at all. A lot of digital processing works at 5V - you only have to provide enough current capacity.

Leaking noise into the supply shouldn't be acceptable either. I admit my Zoom B3 and G3 do that too, although it isn't an issue for me since I never use them along with other pedals.

TimmyO

What multifx ship with 5v supplies? :-/ In the past I've always experienced the major faff of having to use dedicated 12v, 16v, 18v, 24v or whatever supplies. Who knows how noisy that stuff was - there was no other practical option but to use the supply it came with. 

ICBM

None 'ship with 5V supplies' - the point is that most digital processing operates at 5V, and there is step-down circuitry inside the pedal to give that - so a 9V supply is plenty. Sometimes other (analogue) circuitry in the same pedal operates at 9V, +/-12V or some other combination which the maker wants to use a different supply voltage for, but there is no reason to find it surprising that a digital pedal can run at 9V. There are many digital multi-FX which have 9V supplies, including the Zooms.

I admit that 9VDC is a bit of a poor standard to choose as a universal power supply voltage, but it isn't that much of a problem. In general I think that not using it is either laziness - ie not bothering to add the necessary circuitry to make the pedal work from 9V - or deliberate, so they can sell an expensive 'unique' adaptor.

If Boss can make a DD-20 operate from a 9VDC supply and not leak noise into it, so can any other maker of the same sort of effect if they want to.

aswefallintostatic

Update: im going to order a T-Rex chameleon: http://www.t-rex-effects.com/fueltank-chameleon/ Looks like it will do the business and also accommodates for the inevitable upgrade to more strymon stuff....

jeztone2

I use a Cioks AC10 as well, I can reccomend it. Paul Ciok is pretty helpful if you email him direct.

RaymondLin

I have a DC10 here, really flexible and powerful.  I know someone got it to run 3 Strymons (Timeline/Mobius/BigSky) and then 8 more pedals!