DIY Guitar Pedal Power Supply

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

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Joined
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Woking
I've just been trying to find a place to post this, but there's no real place for electronics on the forum so I'll give it a go in here.

I have a 1-Spot power supply for my pedalboard, which works alright but I'm concerned about it being a bit weak and I don't really like have all the wires trailing all over the place. Mass-manufactured power supplies are really expensive so I'm wondering if I could build one.

I've just been reading a guide for building your own power supply:

https://hotbottles.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/a-real-effects-pedal-power-supply/

I'm hoping someone with some electronics knowledge can help. I can see that they're transforming down here from 115V to 9V or 18V. For the UK, though, obviously we need to take 230V down to 9 or 18V. Could someone advise me on how to achieve this?

Apart from that, the rest of this board looks like something I could make!
 
You can get a Psu for under £100, it will be isolated and comes with all the cables.

I wouldn’t build my own psu, board wise you can nail it to a 2x4, but I’d be careful with power.
 
From my own experience, having a psu with isolated outputs is invaluable. £100 is an investment, for sure. But the hassle of getting ground noise/dealing with bad electrics in rehearsal spaces/venues/home is an awful headache. A vote for the T-rex fuel tank jnr here (check for 2nd hand deals?). Daisy chaining one source of power is asking for trouble IMHO.

If you're happy dealing with mains voltage - go for it, but be careful.

Also, the One Spot seems to deliver 1700mA.. given an overdrive is rarely above 20-30mA it should suffice for quite a few pedals?
 
Raymond Lin said:
How about a £35 one?

https://m.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant.htm?o=13&search=1517426151
Click to expand...

Nice, thanks! I did find an even cheaper one on Amazon too, £28, but then I feel suspicious of it. I guess, in reality, whatever someone else has made is going to be a lot better than whatever crappy thing I buildmyself.

skinnyl said:
From my own experience, having a psu with isolated outputs is invaluable. £100 is an investment, for sure. But the hassle of getting ground noise/dealing with bad electrics in rehearsal spaces/venues/home is an awful headache. A vote for the T-rex fuel tank jnr here (check for 2nd hand deals?). Daisy chaining one source of power is asking for trouble IMHO.

If you're happy dealing with mains voltage - go for it, but be careful.

Also, the One Spot seems to deliver 1700mA.. given an overdrive is rarely above 20-30mA it should suffice for quite a few pedals?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I will have a look at the T-rex fuel tank jnr. These sorts of things don't seem to be much affected by age in the second hand market, ie the prices don't really drop that much!

i take your point about the 1-Spot; I'm currently running three pedals for my bass (tuner, compressor, overdrive) and I don't have any issues with power at this point. I'm thinking about swapping the distortion out for a muff. The Muff Pi I have for guitar and the OD I have (modded Boss DS-1) cut out so much of the low end for some reason. I would also like to get a synth pedal, and long term I really really want a Tech21 Sansamp, but they are £150+ second hand!

But with what I have, maybe I'm making the issue seem bigger than it is.

We had practice last night and I had absolutely no issues relating to my bass and electronics. My playing on the other hand...
 
A good PSU will be the longest lasting component on your board, I’d invest in a good one that has not only sockets and power but also flexibility such as 18V or 24v or even AC and DC.

I swear by Cioks PSU as a brand but there are others by people like Strymon.

Also 1700mha might seem plenty but when or if you get digital pedals, some need 400mha, and these really like isolated sockets or you’ll get interference.

Start with a Harley Benson (though not sure if that’s isolated?) and it’ll be a good first step.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll certainly look at the Harley Benson. To be honest, looking again at the couple I've found they're absolutely huge, and my pedalboard is fairly compact, so they may not work in that respect anyway.

I have one digital pedal (I think), which is pretty cool. The Spectracomp Compress from TC Electronics. I don't know whether you've seen these, but basically they have an app, which has a whole load of pre-programmed compressor settings made by professional bassists (or guitarists, depends which pedal you have). You choose which setting you want, and put it up against your pickup. The phone makes a 56k dialup noise and then your tone is imprinted on the pedal!
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll certainly look at the Harley Benson. To be honest, looking again at the couple I've found they're absolutely huge, and my pedalboard is fairly compact, so they may not work in that respect anyway.

I have one digital pedal (I think), which is pretty cool. The Spectracomp Compress from TC Electronics. I don't know whether you've seen these, but basically they have an app, which has a whole load of pre-programmed compressor settings made by professional bassists (or guitarists, depends which pedal you have). You choose which setting you want, and put it up against your pickup. The phone makes a 56k dialup noise and then your tone is imprinted on the pedal!
Click to expand...

You can get a "stand" for PSU or you can mount them under the board if you put feet on the corners to raise it.

I had to ghetto it with some masking tape but it works.

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Re compressor, TC and their Tone Print tech is their special thing, it's good but I prefer more analogue approach and just turn knobs. They make it for all their pedals I believe from Reverb, delay etc.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Nice little board. You must have some dainty feet, though!

Is that a volume pedal or a wah? What's the pedal with the bull on?
Click to expand...

The pedal with the Bull is just a buffer, not 100% required but I like it as it is the input jack for the board which is always with cable in and out, so if the jack breaks, I only have to replace that pedal which is really cheap, vs fixing an expensive pedal.

I tend to press it with my hands to turn them on and off anyway so putting them close together is not a problem.


That is a volume pedal, I do have a wah but is kept off the board, wah don’t play well after buffer so it’s best to put it before it, so it’s off the board.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Interesting. I can't see why you'd need a buffer, but then again I've never used one. You can fix a pedal yourself for next to nothing, though!
Click to expand...

YouTube “why you need a buffer” and you’ll understand why. The jack thing is just a bonus because the buffer is cheap and actually a lot of pedals have a buffer built in anyway.
 
Raymond Lin said:
YouTube “why you need a buffer” and you’ll understand why. The jack thing isn’t just a bonus because the buffer is cheap and actually a lot of pedals have a buffer built in anyway.
Click to expand...

Cool, I'll have a listen when I'm home. From what I've read it seems much more appropriate for long pedal trains. Interesting either way!
 
I've used the Harley Benton power supply for a while now and it's fine, never any issues. I did consider making my own but I struggled to see the value with the HB being so cheap.
 
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