How Do You Power Your Pedals, Plug or Battery?

[toomanycats]

Wondering about this because I've had some technical difficulties during my last two gigs involving power to my pedals. At Monday night's gig my One Spot Truetone 9v plug in power supply appeared totally dead during set up. I borrowed a spare power supply from somebody else, who then told me to keep it at the end of the night. I used that plug in power supply at last night's gig, during which it too started to act weird. A high pitched humming sound was coming from my amp and I assumed I had a tube going bad. This morning I did some testing and realized it's not the amp, but the power supply. Kinda weird that two power supplies would go bad during two consecutive gigs, but weird stuff happens.

Anyways, this has me thinking about switching to battery power.

What do you use for power, and why is that your choice?

[mozz]

I have a One spot here somebody here sent me. Story was it got noisy after a while. I had put it on the oscilloscope and could see the noise waveform. I tried a few things adding and changing capacitors but couldn't really make any improvements. Come to the conclusion they are known to do this after a while.

I can't say for sure when it comes to using power supplies on actual gigs but I think you get what you pay for.

[aullucci]

I never gig, so take my experience for what it's worth. I rarely use batteries. I have no idea if this is actually true or not, but I read somewhere that if you leave batteries plugged into pedals it can sometimes end badly for the pedal (especially if you leave the I/O cables plugged in as well and I usually leave everything wired up on my board). Again, no idea if true or not, but I bought into that theory early and so I got a One Spot almost as soon as I got my second pedal. It turns out my house has somewhat 'dirty power' and so the OneSpot was predictably noisy.



I got one of these for like $45 I think. Despite the name, it's definitely NOT actually isolated. There are three transformers inside, one for the variable voltage slots and two for the 6 standard ports. Each of the ports is "filtered," but its my understanding that individual filtering is not the same as true isolation. Still, it's much much quieter than the OneSpot was and much more flexible than the OneSpot was (I've used splitters to power 11 pedals at once). And small enough to get tucked underneath. I'm sure there are other good options, but I'm totally pleased with this one. I've had it attached underneath three different boards for 2 or 3 years at least and I've never had a problem with it.

[glasshand]

Both: plugs for home and practice, battery for gigs.

My reasoning is this: on a stage, I don't want to have to worry about yet another cord running across the stage to get tripped over, pulled out, or stepped on and broken (plus it's yet another piece of gear you have to wrangle). Batteries solve all that. I have never had a gig so long that I couldn't easily run off batteries for the whole time, and if it costs slightly more, I regard that as a tradeoff well worth it for not having to deal with the other issues.

At home or practice, things are generally less chaotic and better lit, and it's not a disaster if the plug gets knocked out in the middle of a song. I'll sometimes run a pedal off the batteries from the last gig, though, just so I'm not completely wasting the batteries.

[mickey]

All the pedals I have ever owned were powered by my feet.
All the pedals I've ever owned were attached to bicycles.

[ID10t]

I have no experience but the internet told me....
It is a really good idea to have a few 9v batteries connected to pedal power plugs (in gig bag) so that you don't keep batteries in the pedals that usually are plugged into a power block but that if you have problems with your block, you can plug the 9v in.
At home I have 2 blocks but my fuzz needs a fuzz battery but I haven't played through an amp in 15 months so I pulled the battery. Was checking out one of those plug in battery emulator.

[Edit]
Something like this


you can make your own, this is for reference not endorsement.

[mozz]

Watch those battery clip adaptors. I have some that are tip positive, which a normal Boss/ one spot are tip negative.

[bc rich]

Here is my latest project to check power supplies , cheap ebay two wire volt meter. Also if you plug in a positive tip power supply the meter will not turn on which is good to know .

[RiverDog]

Wondering about this because I've had some technical difficulties during my last two gigs involving power to my pedals. At Monday night's gig my One Spot Truetone 9v plug in power supply appeared totally dead during set up. I borrowed a spare power supply from somebody else, who then told me to keep it at the end of the night. I used that plug in power supply at last night's gig, during which it too started to act weird. A high pitched humming sound was coming from my amp and I assumed I had a tube going bad. This morning I did some testing and realized it's not the amp, but the power supply. Kinda weird that two power supplies would go bad during two consecutive gigs, but weird stuff happens.

Anyways, this has me thinking about switching to battery power.

What do you use for power, and why is that your choice?

Hey TMC, those 1 SPOT adapters are known for doing that. I had it happen with one, and Truetone replaced it when I contacted them about it. The replacement was still noisy and I moved on to a different setup. IMHO those things are just not worth the trouble.

[RiverDog]

Here is my latest project to check power supplies , cheap ebay two wire volt meter. Also if you plug in a positive tip power supply the meter will not turn on which is good to know .

Interesting. I'd be interested in knowing more about this approach.

[glasshand]

I have no experience but the internet told me....
It is a really good idea to have a few 9v batteries connected to pedal power plugs (in gig bag) so that you don't keep batteries in the pedals that usually are plugged into a power block but that if you have problems with your block, you can plug the 9v in.
At home I have 2 blocks but my fuzz needs a fuzz battery but I haven't played through an amp in 15 months so I pulled the battery. Was checking out one of those plug in battery emulator.

Those also look really useful for pedals which make it a real PITA to get into the battery compartment. (Seriously, it is the year 2021. We have been making pedals for over half a century. Put a goddamn battery door on your pedals, designers. This is not rocket science.)

[Perfect Stranger]

Sheer force of my mind!

[Milkman]

Just in case anybody is unaware, most power supplies indicate whether they are “center positive” or “center negative” with a little diagram.

In this picture, the diagram above the ubiquitous “Made In China” indicates that this is a negative center adapter (the black dot is marked with a - while the encircling “C” shape is marked positive.

[honyock]

I liked to go to goodwill and buy AC adapters. You can buy nice heavy duty oversized ones with components that are overkill for the power draw of most pedals instead of relying on an undersized cheap transformer like the 1 spot is (I have a 1 spot and stopped using it due to issues with my way and it, but I think the heat tends to kill them over time due to the too small components for the current draw)

[mozz]

One spot is a switching power supply, no huge transformer. Component size inside means nothing as they don't dissipate heat like a old supply. They are know to be noisy though.
https://www.actpower.com/educational/li ... -supplies/
I think it was rated at 1.7amps, which is a lot, you won't find a wall wart transformer rated that high, well they aren't common anyway. Good things and bad things about both styles. California has banned linear power supplies?

1 drawback of old style linear power supplies, most are not regulated. Put your meter on one, i can bet it is 12 or 16 volts, good way to burn out pedals. Even when loaded down with pedals, your voltage will be high. A regulated supply will output the stated voltage whether 1 pedal or 20 if the current rating is not passed.

[jtcnj]

I dont gig either, not proficient enough even if I wanted to.
I have a One spot that was noisy with some pedals. I have a Pig Nose similar unit that is worse.

I also have the Vitoos unit shown above by @aullucci .
Works great since Jan 2020, added a second one, branded as Amoon, since Aug. 2020.
Both still working fine.
I usually have only 1-3 pedals on at any given time though, playing about 1 1/2 hours most days.

[honyock]

One spot is a switching power supply, no huge transformer. Component size inside means nothing as they don't dissipate heat like a old supply. They are know to be noisy though.
https://www.actpower.com/educational/li ... -supplies/
I think it was rated at 1.7amps, which is a lot, you won't find a wall wart transformer rated that high, well they aren't common anyway. Good things and bad things about both styles. California has banned linear power supplies?

1 drawback of old style linear power supplies, most are not regulated. Put your meter on one, i can bet it is 12 or 16 volts, good way to burn out pedals. Even when loaded down with pedals, your voltage will be high. A regulated supply will output the stated voltage whether 1 pedal or 20 if the current rating is not passed.

Good to know

[nomadh]

I liked to go to goodwill and buy AC adapters. You can buy nice heavy duty oversized ones with components that are overkill for the power draw of most pedals instead of relying on an undersized cheap transformer like the 1 spot is (I have a 1 spot and stopped using it due to issues with my way and it, but I think the heat tends to kill them over time due to the too small components for the current draw)

Yup cut the nice multi adapter daisy chain of plugs and paste it to a nice military industrial power block. For 15 bucks buy 4 different ones and see what works best or wire up 1 for center + and 1 for center neg.

I'm never a believer in batteries in non mobile devices but I'm experimenting with this in myacoustic guitar preamp

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08R7B7T ... asin_image

[andrewsrea]

Nuclear reactor!

Just kidding. I use well filtered 18VDC switching supplies which feed a box which provides isolated & filtered power out, at 18VDC and 9VDC (adjustable to 18VDC). I have 3 of these and one has a built-in battery backup, but didn't do this in follow-on builds as it is easy to connect two 9V batteries in series with a 2.1mm plug and use that in lieu of the supply. I've never needed the battery backup.

Before the switching supplies, I used 18VDC toroidal transformer supplies. The switching supplies provide just as clean power, more efficiently, smaller footprint and without the risk of electro-magnetic interference if it is close to pedals and signal cables.

[Tonray's Ghost]