# Pedal board help



## Rick31797 (Apr 20, 2007)

I have several different brands of pedals..will any powered pedal board work.. 
Rick


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When it comes to pedalboards, "work" can mean a lot of things. For instance:

*Space needs*: How many pedals do you have? How many are you *planning* on having? How big are they? Is there some arrangement of pedals you require (e.g., those things that need to be "up front") that drives how wide the unit has to be? Does the packed-up unit need to fit somewhere in particular?

*Electrical needs*: Does it need to have an onboard power supply? How much current does that supply need to provide? What voltages or voltages? Does it need to provide some sort of isolation of supplies? Does it need to provide bipolar power or different polarities? Does it need to be able to hide power cabling? Does it need to have any sort of special switching capabilities (e.g., master bypass, external loop selection)? Does it need to have a master buffer?

*Accessibility needs*: Sort of the same as Space, but do you need to be able to get to certain pedals more easily? Do you need to be able to avoid stepping on certain things unless you really want to? Do you need to have multiple levels to be able to see the state of certain pedals (e.g., readouts)?

A lotta stuff to consider, but it all depends on your needs. Some folks can do just fine with a little tray-like thing that gives 200ma @ 9vDC and space for a wah, fuzz and Uni-Vibe.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Rick31797 said:


> I have several different brands of pedals..will any powered pedal board work..
> Rick



It depends but probably not. I originally bought all boss pedals and a BCB60 pedal board to carry and power them. One by one I am replacing them with boutique pedals. I replaced my CS3 with a Keeley compressor and that takes the boss power. I am waiting for delivery of my Wampler hotwired pedal to replace my TS9 (that took the boss power) and I was told that the wampler pedal will operate ok on the boss power. I am also waiting for my Diamond Halo Chorus to come in and that won't take the boss power. But from what I hear it has the power supply with it. So basically the only boss pedal left in my BCB60 board is my DD20. I'll probably still keep the board as it powers all but one of my effects. And even if it didn't its still a good case to carry my pedals. So I guess it depends on what you have. If every one of your pedals is a different brand its unlikely that they'll all power up from one board. 
I've seen a couple of pedals come with adapters to accept different power sources so that may be an option for you as well.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

mhammer said:


> A lotta stuff to consider, but it all depends on your needs. Some folks can do just fine with a little tray-like thing that gives 200ma @ 9vDC and space for a wah, fuzz and Uni-Vibe.


I was told that you shouldn't exceed half of the ma. If you have 200ma power you shouldn't draw more than 100ma. Do you think this is accurate?


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## Greenbacker (Mar 29, 2007)

What pedals are we talking about? List em and I'm sure a few of us could help...

Also, what board/power supply are you looking at?

Visual sound has some great solutions for adapting the standard boss plug to other polarities, etc:
http://www.visualsound.net/1spot.htm
...I order all of these from Boutique Tone in Montreal.

The barrel type, neg tip boss is the standard but certain pedals do take other power supplies. You can download this compatability chart courtesy of Visual Sound to get you started:
http://www.visualsound.net/PDF/1SPOTCompatibilityChart.pdf


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

"*I was told that you shouldn't exceed half of the ma. If you have 200ma power you shouldn't draw more than 100ma. Do you think this is accurate*?"

Many "best practices" are intended to provide the margin of safety that will protect against idiots, electrical storms, sudden current draw, etc.

How close to the maximum current delivery capabilty you want to get would depend on a bunch of things. It's a bit like amp wattage and speakers. Say the speakers can dissipate 30W each and the amp is rated at whatever a pair of 6L6s give you (between 45-and 50W in most instances). Are the speakers "safe" because speaker wattage is higher than amp wattage? No. Drive those speakers with a high amplitude signal containing lots of sustained high frequency content, and you can easily build up enough heat to toast the voice coil. Conversely, you can feed your 3" plastic desktop computer speaks from your 100W Marshall, and as long as the power thump at turn-on doesn't kill them and you don't turn the volume up too high, they'll do fine, even though they're probably rated at 2W apiece.

In the case of wallwarts, it would depend on how they are regulated and whether there is usable heat dissipation. If they use one of those sweet little 3-pin voltage regulators, such regulators come in 100ma and 1A forms. Use a 1A regulator with a transformer rated at 300ma, and there is obviously very little risk to the regulator. Use a 100ma transformer with a 100ma regulator and you're taking a risk that the transformer will never put out more than 100ma under any AC powerline conditions. Do you feel lucky, punk? You can use several regulators in parallel to safely pass more current, but of course the current the regulators can handle without toasting is separate from the current the transformer can deliver without toasting, and both of those are separate from what the instantaneous current requirements of the pedalboard might be at any point. If the associated components (tranny, diodes, regulator, caps) can deliver full stated voltage/current without burning up, fine. If the stated current is merely some ideal hypothetical current capability, (the way those $10 plastic computer speakers sometimes state their capability as "360W PMP"), then best to stay away from drawing all that stated current by using it to power enough devices to need that current.

Keep in mind as well that your pedals are never really "off" in bypass mode. A digital pedal will still be doing all of its processing, even with no signal. An analog pedal will be using less, simply because nothing is forcing its semiconductors to deliver current to anything (same way your amp uses less current with nothing plugged in), but it will still be on.

So, in the grand scheme of things, it may be perfectly safe to use a wallwart/supply *with known characteristics* to power devices that will draw, say, 80% of its current delivery capability. But if you know very little about what lurks beneath the black plastic housing, avoiding liberal use of what it claims to be able to do (i.e., not straying above 50% current draw) may be a very wise strategy and assure long life and reliable functioning for the unit.

From the other end, it is also a good thing to have some assurances that your individual pedals will never start sucking all that current from a huge powerful supply and, like goldfish that can't stop themselves from eating, succumb to greed. That the supply is safe is separate from the pedal being safe. Happily, most commercial pedals will not draw any more current than they ought to and are designed that way.

I don't know how much modern self-powered pedalboards attend to this but many people report audible hash when powering several digital pedals from the same supply. I have a bunch of those Line 6 Tone Core pedals, and while they behave themselves when individually powered, daisy-chain the wrong ones and you get very annoying noise. I imagine there are probably some line-filters you can use, but in the absence of circuitry to keep clock noise from one device finding its way to another over a shared power line, you may experience some problems. That is separate, however, from whether the supply feeding those pedals is likely to remain healthy and functioning.

Does that answer your question?


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

mhammer,

The amount of work you do giving folks the straight goods around here is above and beyond the call of duty. I'm much too lazy to devote so much effort to the cause, but you are a prince among men to be so helpful. 

Just in case you don't hear it enough, thanks.

Peace, Mooh.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I hear it more than enough to suit my needs, but....you're welcome.:smile:

Good information makes better musicians.


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## Rick31797 (Apr 20, 2007)

mhammer>>. your dedication to detail, and the information you give us here at the forum, is so valuable, and you are helping alot of people with the information you take the time to post. I or one Thank you so much., I am learning things that i would not learn any place else.


I guess i was not very specific, with my question.. I dont need anything ( state of the art) simple for me is better.

I have a Boss HR-2 Harmonizer, Boss CS-2 compressor/ sustainer, Digitech DF-7 distortion, Ibanez digital delay, Boss BF-3 flanger


Thanks Rick


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Rick31797 said:


> mhammer>>. your dedication to detail, and the information you give us here at the forum, is so valuable, and you are helping alot of people with the information you take the time to post. I or one Thank you so much., I am learning things that i would not learn any place else.


Thanks. Actually, not to take anything away from this place, because it has a nice vibe, and it IS Canadian after all (trust me, "L & M" means nothing to a guy from Turkey or Sweden or California), but Aron nelson's DIY Stompbox forum http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php is the #1 spot for high quality information about pedals from experienced users and builders. Nearly 500M posts and 8000 members, many of them the designers of the very pedals we treasure so much. Zachary Vex, Bob Keeley, RG Keen (Visual Sound), and Ton Barmentloo (EHX), and Paul Perry (Frostwave) are regulars. Many of the boutique makers we have come to appreciate over the last 5 years got their start there. Try it, you'll like it. Just don't forget to come back here and talk Canajun, eh.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Thanks for the detailed info mhammer, as this is a subject I'm interested in knowing as well.


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