So I have been having some issues with my amp and noise/hum/crackle in the past few months. Turns out, after several visits to repair that my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe had bad screen filter caps and also needed all the plate load resistors replaced (http://www.justinholton.com/hotrod/plateloads.html). That fixed my crackling problem and the amp was quiet for a few performances but recently the sound guy says, dude your amp is noisy, it's humming, sounds like the ocean out front. So, I disconnect all my pedals and connect them one by one in the effects loop narrowing each one down and finding out how noisy each is. The Dynacomp and Phase 90 are the quietest, but when I plug in the Behringer Echo Machine, it hums like a mother. The Glittaratti and Fatpants I built also hum like mad. WOW the Gliteratti actualy hummed extremely LOUD (while the others were humming but 10x less volume). Here's where I am going with this...
1. I think my build issues are I used plastic enclosed jacks and did not ground the sleeve on input. If I run wire from sleeve to ground, I think they will be quieter. Can anyone verify this?
2. I am looking at Power Supplies like a truly isolated pedal board supply like the Voodoo Labs. Can anyone point me to a less inexpensive, but good pedalboard ps that will eliminate my annoying hum? Anyone knwo anything about any of these?
http://logsdonaudio.corecommerce.com/Power-Supplies/
http://www.joyoaudio.com/en/product/show_174.html
Thanks!
Holy crap, yes. You need to have the grounds connected on both of your jacks. Otherwise one side isn't grounded! Leaving the ground wire off one jack only works if the enclosure is metal.
You will get better shielding with a metal enclosure as well.
The Behringer is digital. Use a separate supply for it if you're daisy chaining.
Isolated power supplies are expensive for a reason -- there's a lot of stuff in there. The two you linked to are not isolated. You can look into building one of your own, but be aware that you are playing with
[public service announcement]
DEADLY VOLTAGE.
[/public service announcement]
Yes! Holy crap indeed. That is what I said when I discovered that I neglected to ground the input jack. Fixed that tonight but there is still a little bit of hum coming through, but not the incredible loud buzz that existed before. It never did that before so near as I can tell I must have never tested it stand alone and always had a pedal in front of the Glitterratti so it was grounded to the pedal before it common ground to my 1 Spot. ANd yes they are metal enclosures. I was going for the MXR jack look so I went with Nutrik jacks on those rather than the alphas type. Lesson learned.
So other than a Voodoo Labs ISO does anyone know of any less expensive pedal power?
I think Trex makes a cheaper supply along the same lines. $99 if I recall.
Jacob
I noticed this recently:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant_junior.htm (http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant_junior.htm)
Claims to have isolated outputs.
Worth a punt for that price (I'm sure you could get it shipped to the US).
Quote from: jkokura on November 19, 2012, 09:28:15 PM
I think Trex makes a cheaper supply along the same lines. $99 if I recall.
Jacob
I think you mean the Trex Junior? I've been using one of those for a long time now, very, very good. I'm not sure if they are made anymore, but I'll check. My pedalboard plans require a second one....
Paul
I've had my eye on the Dunlop one as it has quite a few outputs, but at a smaller price point than the Voodoo Lab ones. Anyone tried that?
Quote from: Bret608 on November 20, 2012, 11:05:30 AM
I've had my eye on the Dunlop one as it has quite a few outputs, but at a smaller price point than the Voodoo Lab ones. Anyone tried that?
The Dunlop Power Brick is non-isolated, so basically just a 1-Spot or any other daisy chain in an enclosure.
Quote from: raulduke on November 20, 2012, 04:27:25 AM
I noticed this recently:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant_junior.htm (http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant_junior.htm)
Claims to have isolated outputs.
Worth a punt for that price (I'm sure you could get it shipped to the US).
Meh, the Harley Benton stuff is pretty low budget (it's Joyo repackaged, I love Thomann, my favourite guitar shop when I lived in Germany, but the HB stuff is pretty lousy quality all around), and it's 30 Euro to get anything shipped to the states. Gator cases makes a nice little isolated unit as well, and I'm pretty sure they're under $100.
A buddy of mine has a Dunlop and it is incredibly noisy. He must have a poor environment for noise, but still.
If you hawk Amazon, you can occasionally find the BBE Supa-Charger for decent prices. I picked mine one up for just over $100 last year.
Could a box of these help make it more quiet?
AMZ power filter
http://www.muzique.com/news/dc-power-filter-box/ (http://www.muzique.com/news/dc-power-filter-box/)
Yeah I guess 30 dollars shipping takes it out of a no brainer to being a bit too much.
I'm gonna buy one to see if it really is isolated outputs though. Will be a handy thing to have around if so.
Quote from: atreidesheir on November 20, 2012, 04:05:32 PM
Could a box of these help make it more quiet?
AMZ power filter
http://www.muzique.com/news/dc-power-filter-box/ (http://www.muzique.com/news/dc-power-filter-box/)
yes it could but if you're spending the money to make even 3 or 4 of these, you might as well just buy a voodoo labs supply. especially if you consider the cost of your time in constructing them and that even after all your effort, it still wont be as good a solution as the voodoo labs.
Quote from: raulduke on November 20, 2012, 04:12:53 PM
Yeah I guess 30 dollars shipping takes it out of a no brainer to being a bit too much.
I'm gonna buy one to see if it really is isolated outputs though. Will be a handy thing to have around if so.
Let us know when you get! If it's really isolated i'm definitely buying one, it's cheaper then a onespot!
I designed a PCB after reading this article:
http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/spyder/spyder.htm
and was thinking to add the inductors & cap filters after the bridge rectifier.
I came across a few 220V / 2x15 v pcb trafos under 3$ a few months ago but i'm pretty sure an old laptop power supply could be used as well.
The pcb is pretty straightforward even for an eagle noob like me but i'll share it if any interest.
i was planning to have the whole thing in a 1590bb box for eight outputs (whatever voltage they deliver).
On the Joyo site it SAYS that mini power supply is completely isolated. I think that's the one I've seen before in a shop.
I've wanted to build a power supply for a long time now, just not interested in a big clunky enclosure to fit a ton of transformers. That's a project I could say I really need!