DIY power supply for pedal board

[Hides-His-Eyes]

Can one use any elements in a distribution box to 'isolate' with any effectiveness previously parallel outputs with regulators and capacitors, etc?

[philbinator1]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the advice!  Mark, do you have a link with some more in-depth instructions
about your PD box?

[Mark Hammer]

Can one use any elements in a distribution box to 'isolate' with any effectiveness previously parallel outputs with regulators and capacitors, etc?

You can certainly provide some degree of isolation, though admittedly not to the same degree as having a specially wound transformer, as was illustrated, or having multiple individual wallwarts.  But, if you had a string of 7809-based regulated outputs fed from the same 1A wallwart, you'd certainly have more regulation than you do from your typical daisy-chain cable.

Mark, do you have a link with some more in-depth instructions about your PD box?

I have some pictures of one example, which I can't see to link to from work, but I'll try and link to them later this evening.

The overall plan gets more complicated for those who have more than one digital pedal on their pedalboard, since there can be clock-related noise generated.  But if you have, say, one digital pedal, and a bunch of analog stomps, here would be nothing to prevent you from having two regulated outputs with 1A capacity (regulators come in 100ma and 1A flavours) fed from a common external supply/transformer, and multiple output jacks fed from one of them.

[philbinator1]

Ok cool, I'll look foward to your pics.  Thanks again dude!   

[JKowalski]

I'm pretty sure regulators will only offer protection against noise generated by the effects themselves, such as LFO ticking, digital hash, etc that may be coming from one pedal and getting picked up by another pedal. (and if the hash is way too excessive it may not even be enough for that) They will not break any ground loops that induce 60Hz humming which seems to be what you want to do in the first place.

I agree that going all the way with full isolation is excessive in some instances, you can definitely get by with daisy-chaining/distribution and come out with no problems whatsoever, it just depends on your setup. However, full isolation is pretty much a guaranteed fix-all for pedalboard noise, and if it is also well regulated you will not have to worry about either 60Hz hum or cross-pedal noise. It pretty much boils down to three options:

- Deal with the noise and use whatever
- Do some experimenting with your setup and find the cheapest/easiest solution to solve your problems
- Go all out, spend the money and time to get something that you won't have to think about again. (unless you build it badly, of course XD)

[Mark Hammer]

Agreed.  Some sources of undesirable sounds require more advanced and costlier forms of power.  My own approach is like a taxi-driver: whatever gets you back on the road fast and cheaply.  Others may opt for a more "professional" solution, and wisely so.

[G. Hoffman]

For everything but the really high current draw (usually) digital pedals, the Weber Transformer really is a good idea.  It has 8 11V 300mA windings which regulate down to 9V very well, and 1 9V 2A winding for 9V AC effects.  If you need an 18V output, you can use two windings in series, too.  For the price, it seems pretty hard to beat, though it may not be big enough for you.  Then again, if you need to make something compact, any larger transformer is going to be a problem!


Gabriel

[Mark Hammer]

As promised, here's a picture of an example of what I was talking about.  This is a simple small plastic box, with one in jack and 4 out.  This particular example is really more of a higher-end daisy-chain device.  There is no isolation between outputs, merely a 1000uf cap to assist in the smoothing of what comes from the wallwart, and the 4 output jacks that allow one to run power cables of optimum length to locations on a pedalboard.

[seekndestroy74]

Do yo have schematic diagram for power supply with 8 output? I just want to built my own power supply for my pedals, thank you God bless

[Paul Marossy]

As promised, here's a picture of an example of what I was talking about.  This is a simple small plastic box, with one in jack and 4 out.  This particular example is really more of a higher-end daisy-chain device.  There is no isolation between outputs, merely a 1000uf cap to assist in the smoothing of what comes from the wallwart, and the 4 output jacks that allow one to run power cables of optimum length to locations on a pedalboard.

I like!

[swal]

Just a quick thanks to mark, I just built one of these for my pedal board, works great and no more messy daisy chains.

[askwho69]

  keeping my eye on this

[Gordo]

I've had really good luck with the AMZ power board and the Jameco 18V wall-wart that Jack recommends. It's got 18V, 12V, and 9V outs. Mine's powering a Boss Giga-delay (brutally noisy), 2 L6 modelers, and a crapload of DIY analog stuff. I'm in the process of moving it from a B to BB sized box and getting rid of the -9V and adjustable 9V ports. The small box is right on the edge of building up too much heat so if I start stringing too many pedals off a single port (like more than 6) the regulators get a bit of an attitude. I'll mount the regs to the case to dissipate heat a bit more efficiently.

[Jhouse]

I'm really fond of THIS. I've never really ran my pedals off of batteries (since I use digital effects sometimes), but I never really bought a good power supply for it. I found that nifty little schematic and started incorporating it into my pedals that I make (with an option to switch it off if you already have a high end power supply). It works out really well for turning a crappy 15 dollar wall wart with a ton of hum to completely silent. You could put it into a small box and then daisy chain your pedals together. It's like the idea Mark had, just smaller (1000 uf capacitors are huge!).

[pazuzu]

this is what i use. not diy, but economical.

[askwho69]

I'm really fond of THIS. I've never really ran my pedals off of batteries (since I use digital effects sometimes), but I never really bought a good power supply for it. I found that nifty little schematic and started incorporating it into my pedals that I make (with an option to switch it off if you already have a high end power supply). It works out really well for turning a crappy 15 dollar wall wart with a ton of hum to completely silent. You could put it into a small box and then daisy chain your pedals together. It's like the idea Mark had, just smaller (1000 uf capacitors are huge!).

[petemoore]

 Tried all of them.
  Batteries, power supply bundles, daisy chains and.
  "Take away" techniques, starting with 'perfect' power supplies [DC 9v batteries] and various daisy chainings, even multi-effect-panel experiments to replace the cells with power-patches were conducted to report:
  The environment is loud, we don't notice until after we've managed to find ways to recieve and boost the everpresent signals.
  Wahs have inductor/coils which are 'can be pickups'.
  Fuzzface can be radio reciever with built in signal boost.
  High gain signals can produce hash that finds it's way into sensative input signal areas, 'grounded input when bypassed', shielding the sensative input wire, adequate cap-filter options mentioned.
  LFO's may be noticed to wobble the power supply and output 'click' into thier immediate environment. 
  And all that work was futile when what I guess was some 'third wave' activities...the ones I imagine were created when 2 or more other waves contributed energies to create the dreaded 3rd wave, a sum/difference result of it's creator waves. Additional frenetic yet futile re-patch-work show ensued, it was only sardonically entertaining.
  Once the KANA was taken [kill all noise approach], the reports were greatly simplified.
  I built a Spyder, even with spare parts usage/savings and 'ol CPU PS box w/IEC salvaged, the deal-links above [filtered/regulated/floating DC outputs] looks like the recommendable option, amazing deal even, seems like the price jumped down recently.

[pantufla]

hi there guy, I'm trying to build a power supply, the idea is that this supply must be completely quiet, so I'm gonna set a EMI filter at the begining and then want to use a hammond 229B12 dual pack tranformer, but at this ponit I0ve got some problems. First Im from southamerica so the voltage here is 220 that's why i have got that kind of transformer, I already have drew an scheme and a layout but not quite sure if it well set i mean to get the 220v without problems. I also want to use a fuse amp but im doubious aout it range it could be 1/8 or a 1/4 fuse amp.

i hope you can help me with it

thanks.

scheme:

layout:

[amptramp]

pantufla

The 229B12 is not going to do this for you since you have two 6.3 volt outputs at 900 mA which can be connected in series to act as one 12.6 VAC output at 900 mA.  The 6.3 will not run a 9-volt regulator, so there cannot be two independent outputs - the AC output windings have to be connected in series to get one 12.6 VAC 900 mA output.  You have to choose a different transformer to use the schematic you provided.

[pantufla]

thaks for your answer, now a got two option

first, change the scheme to work in series, so it should be something like this (not sure if it is good)

image hosting


second, change the transformer for a 229C24 series24 24V C.T. @   parallel 1A 12V @ 2A it would work? in that way echa pack will give 12v 1a, and i will keep working with the same scheme, so now the layout is ok? and what do u think about the fuse, it should be 1/4 or 1/8?


Transfromer data sheet: http://www.hammondmfg.com/pdf/5c0013.pdf