Power supply for effects. NO HUM

[WayneSMT]

I have been plagued by 9volts going dead. Leaving whatever effects box I have used plugged in. Taking at least 4 new batteries to a gig - or worse yet sending someone to the store because I forgot to pick up new batteries. The only place usually open at that time of night is a mini-mart and I wind up paying 7 bucks apiece for one battery. I have tried using the 9 volt adapters to power my effects. Bought the Danelectro one, worked good, but I could still pick up a faint 60hz hum in the backround. Tried some other brands including Radio Shack - BIG MISTAKE. Had an idea. I picked up two, D-Cell, 4 place holders - 6volts apiece and two, D-Cell, 2 place holders - 3 volts each. I ran a 4 and a 2 in series to get 9volts and did the same with the other set then ran both sets in parallel. So now I have two sets of 6 D-Cells giving me a 9 volts. I built a daisy chain for 5 effects plus a second output for a second daisy chain. I run 3 Danelectros, 1 BOSS TU2 and a Tech-21 GT2 - They have all been hooked up now and all of their little red lights are still happily glowing, for get this. Wait for it. 18 hours straight. I have left my guitar plugged into it and every now and then I test it out and all of the effects still sound the same as when I plugged them in. Put a volt meter on it and the thing is putting out a solid 8.45 volts, so that is down a little over a half a volt from the original 9 after 18 hours. The batteries that I used are generic Western Family. I can get 4 of them for 1.99. So about 6 bucks in batteries and it is still going strong. I figure with my normal usage 6 bucks in batteries should last about 2 - 3 weeks. I wonder how long it would last with a better battery. Oh just a side note. You can't use NIMH or NICAD with this thing. A normal D-Cell rechargeable is about 1.2 - 1.3 volts. So you would only have about 7.5 volts total. Thats about the point where the voltage drop is going to change the tone. Not really a bad thing. I had a distortion pedal that sounded just perfect with a half-dead battery.

I mounted it all in a little metal tool box, 18" x 4" x 4". Holds all my pedals, the batteries and the daisy chain. Anyone ever heard of something like this before? It works great for recording. Just curious.

Wayne

 

[regebro]

Nope. And Radio Shack? Really? digital effects and pedals don't care that much about what you need them. Many quality effects know that you might feed them crap voltage and adapt to that. But many, even high end like Boss, really need an almost perfect 9V signal. I use this: http://www.cioks.com/products/baby.htm

There is no 110V version, but somebody must have made something similar.
[google] Yup: http://www.voodoolab.com/pedpower.html

Your solution is cheaper though.