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powering multi effects from one battery

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7/21/2003 5:48 AM
Burnz	powering multi effects from one battery Is it possible to power mulitple effect pedals from the external power supply using a single 9v battery? so that one battery could power 3 or 4 pedals at once externally to the unit.

7/21/2003 6:34 AM

9V cells have about 500-600 mAH. So depending on how much current your pedals draw then maybe a couple pedals could be powered for a show.

The problem with that? 9 volts cost $4 each. You could wire 6 D cells which would have 90,000 mAH (too much to drink and an In Flames show tonight, if I am not correct it is still 15,000 mAH at least) of capacity at 9 volts and cost $12. I plan to offer a pedal power supply that does this. It is great cause it is hum free, portable, cheaper and easier than a bunch of 9V cells! I also plan to also write up a project page on this if my experiments go as well as I hope they do.

nic

7/21/2003 5:43 PM

Stompboxes vary widely in power consumption. Some want less than 1ma to get off the ground, while others will want in excess of 15ma. If you are fortunate enough to have 4 pedals whose combined consumption is less than 12ma total, then you could run 4 of them off a single 9v battery just as easily as you could run a single 12ma consumer off the same battery. The odds of that happening are pretty damn small though, which is why you tend to see adaptorsfor wall power and no adapters for sharing battery power.

The D-cell solution that nic offers is an excellent one. A 6-cell holder is a bit bigger than a pedal itself, and will supply juice for a stack of pedals for quite a while. Perhaps even more conveniently, you can stick an inline switch between the battery pack and the pedals and kill the power with a master switch without having to unplug patch cords to turn batteries off.

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