How much power do you (I) need?

[El Heisenberg]

I think I've got too many pedals running for my power supply.

The last pedal I built was a PT-80 delay with a toggle to switch between the SHecho delay section and the normal PT-80 delay. The  thing is run off 12v from a charge pump. I knew this would draw lotsa current, and it's prolly what put me over the top.

If I turn on the white Fat Boost at the end of my chain and play for a while it'll start to whine and stuff. Sometimes a loop will be playing (mobius trip) and the loop will start to slow down along with the whine. Sometimes I power up the chain and I get wining outta the PT-80, until I turn the chain off and turn it on again. I've started turning on my pedalboard twice before starting to play.

I'm using a 12.6v 1.2A transformer and an LM317 regulator. I had to seperate the transformer from the regulator and the rest of the pedalboard because if the transformer was close to any of the pedals or the regulator it would introduce hum. That bothered me for a long time. But since then, this has been enough power for me. Until now. All the pedals are daisy-chained, except for like 3 on the bottom that are daisy chained and have their own plug to the supply. 





-Fender Tuner, MXR Noise Gate, MXR DynaComp, Fulltone OCD, Boss OC-2, TS-808, some Parametric Equalizer, Fulltone Ultimate Octave, Vox wah, MXR Noise Gate, RAT, Big Muff, Z-vex SHO, Fulltone Fat Boost, Jen HF modulator, Tremulus Lune, ROG Tri-Vibe, PT-80/SHecho, Mobius Trip Looper, ROG Splitter-Blend-



I guess I don't really have a question. I'm gunna go out and buy a 12v. 2A transformer and use two LM317s. That way I'll be able to have a supply under each shelf.

Sounds about right tho?? All these pedals? 1000ma not enough? 2A, good enough?

[clamup1]

i dont think you have enough pedals hooked up lol.

[El Heisenberg]

Nope I do not. That's why I need to get more power!!!!! The Rat and Big muff are going into one enclosure since I never use em both at once, they don't need two spots on the board. The "Lunar Modulator" down there is three in one. Jen HF mod, Tri-vibe and Trem Lune. The mobius trip and "twin-delay" are prolly whats eating so much juice.

Mutron-III comming up to replace the over-rated (after you try OCD) tubescreamer, plus a thing with Slow Gear, DOD 280a and DOD fx15 swell decive in one box for after the Rat/Muff. Then comes Echo-Base to be my main delay, while the old delay will just be a reverb. Then add a green ringer somewhere in there. And I think I'm done.

[El Heisenberg]

There's sort of a weight limit to what I can put on the board and still pick up and carry with the rope handle before the structure gives out. The thing is thin wood and nails!



I can't imagine people using a dedicated wall wart power supply for each pedal.

[jasperoosthoek]

Aren't you asking for the obvious, just measure the current consumption with a DMM?

Anyway, I don't mind you showing off your huge pedal board .

[El Heisenberg]

I've already tried that. Honest.

I can't figure a way to do it. I don't have gator clips. Just little prods to touch onto what I wanna measure. I keep shorting the whole chain sticking the meter rods into the jacks to cnnect the supply to the chain. I didn't wanna do any damage and I wasn't getting any real readings anyway.

[El Heisenberg]

Besides, If I were drawing too much current, wouldn't the meter just read what the max my supply can dish out? It wouldn't tell me how much power my whole chain required. Plus I need extra to spare for the future hungier pedals/.

[Gurner]

Besides, If I were drawing too much current, wouldn't the meter just read what the max my supply can dish out? It wouldn't tell me how much power my whole chain required. Plus I need extra to spare for the future hungier pedals/.

I reckon if your pedal chain was drawing too much current, then your voltage supply would sag (it'd also have a lot of ripple)....so if you measure your supply & it's solid/stable no matter how many pedal you hook up to it, then you're in good shape to measure the current draw.

[El Heisenberg]

voltage sag is kinda what it sounds like. The looper starts to slow the loop down, which is what happens when the voltage is lowered on it.

I'm gunna be building the new supply as soon as I can get the stuff,  two LM317s and 2A should be plenty eh?

[El Heisenberg]

oh, right after I posted the last message I went and measured the voltage during the craziness. I played a look, switched in the delay, a distortion, compressor and then the Fat Boost which always makes it happen. These pedals are always on, but it's when I switch em in and start playing for a bit that the voltage sags.

It took like a minute and a half or maybe 2 minutes. The voltage was dropping very slowly, but gradually faster. At around 6v it started dropping rapidly and that's when the wining started and the loop slowed down. Then ALL I did was bypass the Fat Boost and the voltage shot right back up to 9.4v. WTF?



This only happened after I dropped the Echo unit in my chain. And at first I only noticed the problem with the fat boost. Is it the charge pump in the delay?? I'm using two delay sections at once, so that's even more current being drawn. Maybe the charge pump isn't putting out enough current for the delay? But I woudln't know, cos the problem dissappears after I switch off the Fat Boost or a few pedals.


Nobody has said yet either "that doesn't look like too much for 1000ma." or "That's alot of stuff for 1000ma." 

I'm on my way to the store for the transformer and regulator tomorrow.

[Perrow]

After you switch all those things on, does it matter what you play? 

On a more serious note, if you can disconnect the Fat Boost and the problem goes away, couldn't you put it on a separate supply?

[Gurner]

Nobody has said yet either "that doesn't look like too much for 1000ma." or "That's alot of stuff for 1000ma."  

Ok - That's a lot of stuff for 1000mA ...and I claim my prize (you can paypal me direct)

I'm on my way to the store for the transformer and regulator tomorrow.

Not sure if you've purchased yet, but bearing in mind the January sales, this transformer ought to be perfect for your rig....

http://www.tinyurl.com/4f9la5w

[El Heisenberg]

Ok, I'll go 3A??

[Thomeeque]

 My very wild guess is up to 700mA (if all pedals are OK), 1A should be definitely OK..

If you want to do it really seriously, unplug all boxes and measure one by one. Build some simple tool for it - e.g. from one male and one female DC jack, hook one pole by wire and second by ampermeter..

T.

Just FIY, my PB:

Cry-Baby GCB95 (w LED & buffer)
DynaComp*
2x MicroAmp*
TS808*
Big Muff*
Electric Mistress* (flanger)
MXR Phase 100
SurfTrem
Boss Digital Delay DD-3
Marshall Reflector (digital reverb)
Seiko Chromatic Tuner

Total measured current: 220mA

* = sort-of, not originals

[El Heisenberg]

Youre only pulling 200ma?!? Wtf!? So this isnt a current problem.

Its a problem with the pt-80 delay??? And...other pedals??

[El Heisenberg]

And if the loop is playing and certain pedals aren't bypassed, and signal is going through em, that would up the current draw? So I'd have to like, turn em all on and play threw em and measure em.


I'd have to cut up a daisy chain to get a DC plug.

[runmikeyrun]

you might have something screwy with the fat boost if that's what's causing the voltage to drop when you plug it in.  It must be consuming a large amount of current.  I don't know that circuit off hand, but i can't imagine it drawing THAT much to make a difference.  Test current draw on just the fat boost and see what it is.  You might have a leaky power supply cap or some sort of weird short causing a large current draw just through that pedal.

[El Heisenberg]

No. Fat boost is old. Nothing wrong with it. The problem happens with other pedals. Nothing wrong with the chain till I put the Delay in. The Delay uses a charge pump to turn 9v into 12v. I think that's my problem.

There's something wrong with the delay. I was just playing with it to get it started. I had the Muff, OCD, SHO, Fatboost and delay on, but nothing was happening. Started the loop and It started to whine after only a couple seconds so I was prolly down to 7.5 volts already before I started the loop. I disconnected the power from the delay and everything went back to normal.


The Delay pedal is the PT-80, but I can toggle out the PT2399  chip and use the delay section for SHecho. But they're both being powered at the same time, through the 5v regulator thats after the 12v reg after the charge pump.


If I'm not short current than I guess it's the Delay pedal. WTF. Or the charge pump. Crap What do I do?

[El Heisenberg]

Could I be daisy chaining too many pedals from one DC port??? The regulator can dish out 1000ma. but I read that it's no good to daisy chain more than 100ma from one source.


Would building a couple more regulated power supplies and running em off the same transformer help me out? Or is it the freakin delay!

[Thomeeque]

 When you remove delay completely from your pedalboard (DC is unplugged, input and output bypassed), does everything else work correctly?

If yes, analyse the delay separately first.

If no, pull another suspicious pedals completely out from your pedalboard one by one until you find problematic one.

Daisy chain is not the best way how to feed pedals, but it could hardly lead to such a fatal problems - something else is wrong.

T.