Is the Regulated Power Supply useless ?

[sam_801023]

Is the Regulated Power Supply useless ?

http://www.dxing.info/equipment/wall_warts_bryant.dx

The above link shows the PSU I've just built last holiday, I chosen the 7809 version with DC13V input without adding the 0.001uf capacitor at the end.

However, it seems useless ! 

I did an A/B test between the regulated PSU and a Cheap Wallwart on a high gain distortion unit.
However, I believe there is no difference bewteen them in terms of noise generated by PSU.

What should I do ?
Actually, which DIY PSU is the best ?

[JasonG]

Your not usually going to hear the differences between one power supply or another when your only powering one pedal. Hook up 10 or so and see if the distortion sounds the same with both of them then.
With power supplies you need think about how much it's rated for and how safe is it. You can ruin a pedal in a second when a power supply goes bad. What kind of safety features does your PS have?   When it's all said and done your better off with a regulated power supply. 

[jacobyjd]

I built the GGG one (a forumite sold me the kit for like $20! Woo!), and it works great--no noise, etc.

[starekase502]

i  remeber that kit i was too late getting it by like 30 min

[starekase502]

 

[jacobyjd]

i  remeber that kit i was too late getting it by like 30 min

Haha that's right!

It's my backup now

[Derringer]

Is the Regulated Power Supply useless ?

http://www.dxing.info/equipment/wall_warts_bryant.dx

The above link shows the PSU I've just built last holiday, I chosen the 7809 version with DC13V input without adding the 0.001uf capacitor at the end.

However, it seems useless ! 

I did an A/B test between the regulated PSU and a Cheap Wallwart on a high gain distortion unit.
However, I believe there is no difference bewteen them in terms of noise generated by PSU.

What should I do ?
Actually, which DIY PSU is the best ?

what's the distortion unit you powered?
any chance that it has a regulator built into it?
it's also possible that your "cheap" wallwart has regulation in it

On my hombrew pedals I learned real quick that the run-of-the mill 9V power supplies that I had been using on my boss pedals didn't cut it. The hombrews had no regulation, just large caps on the rails. They needed that regulated and well filtered power to run without noise.

[anchovie]

I did an A/B test between the regulated PSU and a Cheap Wallwart on a high gain distortion unit.
However, I believe there is no difference bewteen them in terms of noise generated by PSU.

Do you mean that they both have no noise or they both have noise and it's the same? If it is noisy, have you run the pedal from a battery too?

[sam_801023]

I built the GGG one (a forumite sold me the kit for like $20! Woo!), and it works great--no noise, etc.

Which Power Supply does you refer to ? as there are several PSUs on GGG
I saw one of them there, which is similar to mine, using a 7809
But the only difference is that the one on GGG uses retifier diodes as it is for AC power input but I omitted the 4 diodes as I use DC12V input

Your not usually going to hear the differences between one power supply or another when your only powering one pedal. Hook up 10 or so and see if the distortion sounds the same with both of them then.
With power supplies you need think about how much it's rated for and how safe is it. You can ruin a pedal in a second when a power supply goes bad. What kind of safety features does your PS have?   When it's all said and done your better off with a regulated power supply. 

Do safety features mean something like diodes for polarity protection, high working voltage capacitors or other things ?

I did an A/B test between the regulated PSU and a Cheap Wallwart on a high gain distortion unit.
However, I believe there is no difference bewteen them in terms of noise generated by PSU.

Do you mean that they both have no noise or they both have noise and it's the same? If it is noisy, have you run the pedal from a battery too?

Yes, I've compared using the PSU and using a 9V battery. Using battery results in much lower noise ,about 15% of using the PSU since it is a high gain circuit and some noise is inevitable.

[Paul Marossy]

Yeah, but does your distortion pedal have power suppy filtering built into it already? Most commerical pedals do.
If so, then yeah, what wall wart you use won't matter much.

[sam_801023]

Yeah, but does your distortion pedal have power suppy filtering built into it already? Most commerical pedals do.
If so, then yeah, what wall wart you use won't matter much.

Well, the pedal I used to test the PSU is a DIY Crunch Box.
Concerning power supply filtering, I use the most commonly used RC filter, a 100-ohm resistor plus a 100uf capacitor.


In addition, what is the best power supply filtering, I heard using a 9.1v zener is good. However, if the power supply is lower than 9.1v like 8.7v, will the 9.1v zener filter the power supply and make the 8.7v become 9.1v ?