An Odd Pedal Power Supply Issue!

Hello to all,

I hope all your Christmas preparations are going well mine were till just now.
Please bare with me for this tale of power supply woe.

Being pleased as punch for actually coming up with an imaginative present idea for my darling wife, I decided to splash a few beer tokens on myself and bought a power supply to run my pedals. Not going overboard, I plumped for a cheapy (£25) from Maplins that has been mentioned as being very successful in many posts here and there. I could not hold back any longer so with hands shaking with excitement at the prospect of never having to buy a PP3 for my pedals again I opened the box, removed the existing PP3s from the pedals and plugged them all in.

I now have a problem as follows:

a, Plug all the pedals into the power supply and they work (LEDs go on and off as pedal switched on and off)
b, Connect them together with the relative patch leads and they work as above.
c, Plug a lead either from the amp input or the effects loop ( I will need to run them in 2 groups, Wah and OD into front of amp and modulation stuff through the FX loop as I use the OD from the amp and OD pedal as a boost) and the LEDs turn off then pulse (approx 1 sec gap).

I would be very grateful if any of you could shed any light on this issue.

I sit here chewing my finger nails in case I require an amp repair/ service.

Thanks

IanO

Hi Ian, I'd be tempted to plug each pedal in on its own to begin with (i.e., each pedal in turn powered by the PSU, with input & output leads connected to source & amp), which should at least verify that the signal chain works with the PSU for each pedal. Next try the output lead connected to the FX loop return to see if that works OK. Finally add another pedal w/ patch lead & try again & so on. If you follow all that, it SHOULD give you some idea of the point at which the failure occurs. It might be that there's a pedal in the chain that has reverse polarity, for instance, or there might be something somehow out of phase - it's probably a stupid question, but are all the leads connected the right way round? Sounds daft, but I've done it & seen it done many times...

I tried using cheap individual PSUs for my pedals a while back & the results were truly appalling, so in the end I picked up a nice Diago PSU from eBay (with a Gator Pedal Tote pedal board, which I'd also recommend) & now everything's perfect - five pedals on my board plus a separate pre-amp for my acoustic & it doesn't even break a sweat...

Good luck!

It does sound a little like a connection problem somewhere, or a phase issue...

I use 2 x Boss BCB 6s, where each have a power supply and I've never had a problem in many years of pedal abuse....

Thanks for your replies guys. I have just been through systematically and tried to pinpoint the issue. and manged to ascertain that the PSU needs to go back and I'll try a new one.
The results are as follows (for those that are interested!)

Plug a pedal into the power supply without in/out leads - all ok
plug in in/out leads not connected to the amp - all ok
plug the out into either the amp in or FX loop - pulsing lights

"GET YOUR AMP LOOKED AT!" i hear you cry, but wait...... because my practice amp causes the same effect and so does connecting the tip to the sleeve on the jack with something metal.

Therefore using as many brain cells as I can muster at this time of night (1.30 am here) and my not inconsiderable skill and prowess I have deduced that I haven't got a clue why this is happening but that batteries do not cause this issue and so Maplins can replace the unit.

Thanks again for your help and if anyone does know the cause of this, I'd still like to know - these things bug me.

Cheers and I'll post the results of the new unit when I get it.

I always seem to buy the duff one from the shop.

IanO

P.S. got Thomas Blug on spotify whilst I write this - not quite my bag but his tone and playing are awesome!

Night Night world

I had a cheap oversupply for my pedals, it worked but I got a funny noise coming through when the pedals were on. I then got a boss psa supply off eBay, brand-new for £21 delivered, all issues noes resolved. I got a daisy chain adapter too, so I power my cry baby wah wah from it too

Hi Stefan,

I have read reports of hum etc from these PSU's and said to the gut in the shop if they will replace it if it does. I did expect it to at least get some sound out of the pedals first!!

Depending on how many pedals you have, might something like this be an option? (although it looks like you'd need to buy a daisy chain lead for this one, if you don't already have one):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DIAGO-MICRO-POWER-SUPPLY-GUITAR-EFFECTS-PEDAL-9V-/300829397432?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&hash=item460ad451b8

As I said previously, I use a Diago PSU (a 'Powerstation') & it's been faultless.

Will get my money back and buy one of these.....just can't stretch to the big PSU yet. Thanks for the advice and link

Cheers

IanO