Is 8.6 volts an acceptable voltage?

[bdevlin]

I just built a bunch of regulated power supplies and it turns out most of them are runing at about 8.6 volts.  Could this be an issue.  The effects are Big Muff, Green Ringer, EA Tremolo, BSIAB, TS-808, MXR EF, Stratoblaster.

[Processaurus]

I've used one of those type power supplies, it worked just fine for some pedals, others not so well.  Lots of pedals have a series Si diode in the power, so the circuit actually sees .7v less than what you put in, so you'd be down to 7.9v in those pedals.  Might still be a good thing to have around, sometimes with daisy chaining pedals, one of them will make some noise on the power lines, and need a seperate power supply, like some digital pedals, or modulation pedals where their LFO's make spikes in the PS.

[darron]

some batteries will read that much and work okay. ESPECIALLY rechargeables... the 'roland' one that came with my boss tuner read around that.

[Processaurus]

Actually, looking at your list, the only one that might act different is the EA, I think the LFO acts less stable, and may latch up at a slightly faster speed than when the supply voltage is higher.  The flashing LED trick contributes to this too, by lowering the supply voltage seen by the LFO down by the voltage drop of the LED.

PS your modular pedal looks incredible.  Your labels especially.  Did you see this thread about protecting printed graphics with thin plexiglass?  Might work great with your design.

Also, I'm guessing this power supply is for your modular pedal, I'm sure that you can get away with using a single PS for all of them. You can avoid any possible ground loops (though I doubt it would be a problem any way you did it) by just having the + daisy chained to the effects, and grounding everything to the chassis.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

There's also the option of putting a diode (or two or more) in the ground leg of the regulator to crank up the output.
Though not many FX circuits in my experience are all that voltage sensitive.

[Rafa]

All my stompboxes (except from blue magic) work with voltages as low as 6V but still work if I change  the volatage to 12V so 8,6V for me would be great, most of them are designed to work with 9V
Cheers
Rafa

[DDD]

8.6 Volts is more than enough for 99% of guitar gadgets. Don't worry!

[toneman]

I'll accept that!!     

[petemoore]

   For setting stuff up like power supplies, i like to have a battclip to DC plug wire for testing. I try to keep rather stale and very fresh batteries on hand for running some pre/post Wall Wart tests on circuits. I use it for stuff like
  To see if the polarity is correct and if the unit functions etc. @ lower power
  To test the noise levels, it helps to have a comparator, being able to fairly quickly change from PS to battery, noise problems can be better identified and eliminated or worked with. The tests are of course conditional, so I keep it handy and use it once in a while.