Pedal Board power supply advice

[neatomic]

I like the VooDoo supplies. They aren't overly expensive, offer isolated power, flexible outputs, and have been reliable for a great many people for a long time. They also have a decent under pedal board mount kit available.

bingo!


cheers

[Hammertone]

If you don't want to spend a lot of money, then don't buy this:

[sgosnell]

For some people with complicated pedal boards used for their livelihood, it makes sense to have the best power supplies available. For someone like me, with only one, or the very occasional two pedals, it makes less sense. I feel my money is better spent elsewhere. But everyone's wants and needs are different.

[konstantine]

I have a Strymon Ojai underneath my pedalboard and works great, it is small, light, powerful and most importantly silent!

I also have an One Spot, if you plan on playing any gigs at all, I would avoid it (and daisy chaining in general), since it might work in same places but you there is a possibility to get tons of noise especially if you mix analog and digital pedals.

Konstantine

[Jehu]

I am thinking of making a nice small compact custom board using some hardwoods I have around.

Hey Will, let's see your board when you get it done. I'm just putting a small one together myself out of offcuts from other projects.

[jazzgtrl4]

Get one of those USB 5V to 9V converters. You can get a rechargeable power bank and power your pedals off it. Portable clean power.

Eg, Ionic Audio - 5V USB to 9V DC Converter | Ionic Audio | Reverb

Hmm this looks really cool! I have a few of those power banks laying around the house. might have to give this a try

have you used it?

[sgosnell]

Lots of those 5v/9v converters available on ebay, very cheap, but all center positive, and mostly low power. The link Jabbewocky is the only one I've seen with center negative connector. It's possible to change that if you can solder, but it's sort of a pain to do. This one is pricey, but maybe worth it. I have a 9V battery, but it's somewhat heavy, and a very light LiIon 5V model with 2 outputs that I don't use often, and it may be worthwhile to get this, to use one battery for powering both pedals and my wireless receiver, which uses 5VDC. I'm thinking about it.

[john_a]

voodoo lab pedal power(2) or iso 5 are industry standards..they have isolated outputs for no hum..

The "Pedal Power 2 Plus" had the stuff I wanted:
Isolated outputs
Toroidal transformer
(4)Switchable 9v / 12v outlets
(2)High current 250ma outlets
(2)Adjustable "sag" outlets
18v/24v available when using special cable

But I bought the Mosky C8 (China knock-off of PP2+) and it has been working fine.
Similar specs, but claims 300ma vs 250ma on the high current outlets, and you don't need special cables for the higher voltage (like where the PP2+ would need 2 outlets joined for 18v use) as it just has 8 dip switches to select the output's function.

Obviously there's a lot of choices today, and there's a lot of worse stuff out there too (if you get a box that weighs little, and seems to be just a daisy chained switching power supply, you may be disappointed in the end that you skipped out on isolated outlets.)

So far the Mosky C8 has performed well for me. The other style I had interest in was the rechargable type, but never got the chance to play with them.

Below is a picture of the actual Voodoo Labs PP2 guts, followed by 2 pics of the Chinese copy (Mosky C8.)
Like their translation fail screen print states "No MOER Noisy Ground Loops !!"
John

[john_a]

On a related note, while my power supply came with the typical set of cables, I did plan some pedal board layouts where additional length would help. Shopping for cable building supplies, I was happy with these parts from Digi-Key:

CP-2191-ND CABLE ASSY R/A 2.1MM 6' 18 AWG
CP3-1000-ND CONN PWR PLUG 2.1X5.5MM

The first part number is for a nice heavy conductor six foot cable with just one molded RA connector, so you can trim the length to suit then install your choice of barrel plug connector on that open end. Since these cables had one right angle plug already, I used the straight plugs CP3-1000-ND. I bought more plugs than cables, as the 6' cables would yeild enough extra length to create more than one each. These parts let me build better / stronger cables, as that does seem to be a weak point on most every power supply I've seen for sale.
John