Pedal Power Supplies Options

[yoncopin]

I've been using an el-cheapo pedal power supply Donner DPA-1 I believe it is a switching supply and the price was right. I've been working hard to try different techniques for lowering the noise floor in my DIY pedals. I've tried shielded wire, shielded enclosures, but nothing compared to the difference which occurred when I changed power supplies. I suspected this might help, and wanted to learn a bit, so tonight I built a 400mA filtered regulated linear power supply. The difference in the noise floor was very noticeable. So, if you're using a junk power supply and have noisy gear, this definitely makes an improvement. I might try to put the old and new on an oscilloscope to chart the difference, if anyone is interested.

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[Mertay]

Although a bit expensive and consumed space I always got boss adapters which are regulated and never had issue's. I do want to try one with high mA and daisy chain to see how well it will work, probably with my lower gain pedals.

Shielding isn't a bad idea though, I've recently read somewhere where some got odd noise issue's when the power supply was near pedals on a pedal board.

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[Todd Simpson]

Well, I"d be interested in getting one of your custom power supplies What's your price? Do you have a demo vid?

Todd

I've been using an el-cheapo pedal power supply Donner DPA-1 I believe it is a switching supply and the price was right. I've been working hard to try different techniques for lowering the noise floor in my DIY pedals. I've tried shielded wire, shielded enclosures, but nothing compared to the difference which occurred when I changed power supplies. I suspected this might help, and wanted to learn a bit, so tonight I built a 400mA filtered regulated linear power supply. The difference in the noise floor was very noticeable. So, if you're using a junk power supply and have noisy gear, this definitely makes an improvement. I might try to put the old and new on an oscilloscope to chart the difference, if anyone is interested.

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[yoncopin]

Well, I"d be interested in getting one of your custom power supplies What's your price? Do you have a demo vid?

Todd

Of course you can have one Todd $0, thank you for the Shred Journey and all your guidance. I have 9V supplies on hand. Do you have any idea how many mA you need? Give me an idea of what you're powering and we can set one up to meet your needs best

Edited: On second thought Todd, mains voltage can kill you. I'm comfortable with my own life with these things, but I don't know if I want to be responsible for yours I'm sure we can find you something else, I had always thought of building you a MIDI effects loop switcher for your Soldano like you'd mentioned once, I'm just still working out the kinks

Although a bit expensive and consumed space I always got boss adapters which are regulated and never had issue's. I do want to try one with high mA and daisy chain to see how well it will work, probably with my lower gain pedals.

Shielding isn't a bad idea though, I've recently read somewhere where some got odd noise issue's when the power supply was near pedals on a pedal board.

The Boss ones may be better quality than the Donner (I'd hope so). A linear supply is less efficient but quiet, switching supplies can be designed to be quiet too, but cheapo ones often aren't. If the supply is really heavy it likely has a transformer in it, which is pretty much all that is in mine. After the transformer it's just a couple filter caps and a voltage regulator.

I find daisy chaining to work really well, you just need enough power for all your active pedals. The might need additional separate supplies if you're trying to power something germanium or digital (like a delay) Those digital pedals can induce some noise on the supply lines that bleed into other pedals.

The most effective shielding I've tried so far is shielded wire on the input wires from the input jack to the first point in the circuit where it gets amplified. The cleaner you can get it there the better.

Take this all with a grain of salt, I'm just experimenting to try to get a deeper understanding of the gear we all love. There's so much hype to sift through. I'm still an amateur

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This post has been edited by yoncopin: Oct 30 2016, 12:59 AM

[PosterBoy]

I used a voodoo labs pedal power 2 when I used a pedal board. It's not cheap but each of the outputs is completely isolated

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