The kiddo is approaching 5 months and I discovered lately that she does good sitting with me for some playing time with real amps (not the little Micro Cube in the living room), so I’m starting to drag pedals and such out again. Before my playing dropped off the edge of the earth I had been using a cheapy Caline power supply for most pedals while using batteries for an old Vox wah and a Fulltone fuzz pedal. I’m wondering if I might get away with using rechargeables in those pedals. Any experiences with that? At some point I will replace that Caline power supply with something that has isolated outputs, some reverse polarity cables, and maybe some variable voltage outputs, but I’ll have to keep using the Caline for now.
It’s possible to get pro sound from cheapish gear if one let’s their ears decide. My live sound is as or almost as good as ever using a $50 multi fx stomp thru a $120 amp via a $200 gtr. It’s just my claim of course…
I don’t have to use cheapish stuff, but it does the job fine and replacement of any one component through damage or theft is no drama
I’ve never used rechargeable’s but I don’t see why they would be a problem.
Maybe draining a little quicker than regular batteries, but just get two. Keep one in the pedal the other in the charger and swap when needed.
A problem with a lot of the cheap power supplies is that they don’t have isolated outputs, and many digital pedals create noise which passes along to other pedals via the power supply. So you can either run separate wall warts for those noisy pedals, where the cost adds up quick and each eats up a power strip outlet, or run those noisy pedals on batteries, which adds up quick in buying batteries since digital pedals tend to be power hungry. Also, some pedals require reverse polarity (many fuzzes do), and you can’t run those pedals on non-isolated power supply outlets with pedals that don’t have reverse polarity, so it’s the case of either running those pedals on their own power supply or running batteries. The most economical choice in the long run is to just use a power supply that has true isolated outputs. And if only a few pedals need to be isolated, rechargeable batteries might be an option. But rechargeable batteries tend to provide about 8.4v instead of 9v. Some pedals (especially digital) will badly misbehave at 8.4v. And fuzzes will sound and behave different at lower than nominal voltage.
When I bought the cheapy Caline supply, there were no lower cost options with truly isolated outputs. But it looks like that may have changed since only a few years. I’ll have to look more at it, but it looks like there are options now in the $40-50 range with isolated outputs. Also I bought the Caline because I didn’t intend to run any digital pedals and wasn’t interested in fuzz at the time, but things change. I have a digital delay and a digital reverb that I get along well with, a digital eq, and a digital looper that I get along ok with , as well as a fuzz that I like that requires reverse polarity. I think everything else I have is good ol analog.
Meh, it’s mostly about the voltage difference.
If power supply systems were designed to take this into account, then all would be fine.
But in reality land, the difference in voltage matters more that it should.
Yea, it’s pretty dumb. ~+/-0.5v shouldn’t matter, but it definitely does in some cases. I suppose I was wondering if anyone is making a true 9v rechargeable these days, but that doesn’t seem to be.
If they did it would involve active electronics, because the naked battery cells in rechargeable’s usually provide less voltage.
Happy to be corrected here, if anyone has a better technical explanation.
So these newer low cost ‘true isolated’ power supplies aren’t galvanically isolated (using transformers). They are IC isolated. I don’t know that it really matters for pedals, but I wouldn’t call that true isolation.
Why not put them on a board with a cheapish power supply?
Sounds way less hassle than changing batteries
I got the Joyo Power Supply 4 three years back for my desk after reading all the comments on it,
seems fine , there’s no hum or problems, does 12/18 and 250 (which I don’t need, but it’s there)
I’m sure there’s other better ones by now
The only thing I use a battery for is my Sunface Fuzz, which requires a non-alkaline smoke alarm type 9V to sound right
I’m running everything from a cheapy supply now (was $25 years ago), except for a fuzz and wah which I run on batteries. A couple of the digital pedals introduce noise on a shared supply (non-isolated), and I’m not good at forgetting to unplug the fuzz and wah, so batteries can run down way faster than they should. Last I had looked, isolated supplies started at well over $100. But it looks like there are ‘IC isolated’ supplies now that run under half that.
Well, then you’d be better off designing the whole system to work with lower voltage, but higher current, to get the same amount of work done without having to manipulate the input voltage.
Or maybe not, depending on practical considerations and efficiencies.
The Joyo IS isolated, here’s the new one
Yea, the U.S. price is $120. If I spend that much I’m likely going to go with one from Sweetfoot since the guy provides a lifetime warranty. https://sweetfootpedals-com.3dcartstores.com/Power-Supplies_c_8.html
Yeah I’ve heard the name but don’t know if it’s available over here
I was just giving you an example of what’s available,
if I was buying now I’d read up all the reviews and check some forums and FB groups for what the current concensus is for bang for buck and reliability
Yah know, I do actually enjoy it when we talk shop, rather than trying to fight each other.
We’re all musos. At least we have that in common.
One thing I’m not sure of is whether these rechargeable battery supplies (such as that Joyo) provide any benefits other than being battery power capable, which I don’t need.
CIOKS always gets rave reviews from the Quad Cortex crowd, partially because they can run the QC as well, but mainly because it’s uber-reliable and zero noise and can stack for 18Vs etc
But it’s a step up in price from the knockoffs
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CIOKSDC7--cioks-dc7-pedal-power-supply
FWIW, I run a Voodoo Labs power supply on my pedal board.
I’ve got 6 pedals plugged in, that’s the most it can handle.
My noisiest pedal is my Boss DS-1 but the noise level on that is the same if I’m using the power supply or a battery.
Yea, that’s pretty steep for a power supply.
I could have sworn that I spotted a power supply with variable output voltage on a couple of it’s outputs (for use with a fuzz), but I’m not finding it now. I’ll probably just give one of the newer Caline models a roll. The older Caline I have has held up well, and they don’t cost much.
I got a Caline Klon clone for FA thats been solid as