How Many Pedals can you power??

  • Thread starter Thread starter reverymike
  • Start date Start date
reverymike

reverymike

Active member
I have a Pedal Power 2+ and want to know how many pedals I can power with it. Obviously, it has 8 power ports, but then there are splitter cables that allow you to split the signal and send to 2 pedals. Can you do this for every port on the pedal power?? Do you lose signal at all?

Can I use a splitter in each port and power 16 pedals??
 
It 100% boils down to the power (mA) consumtion of the pedals and how much max juice the outputs have. With each split you also have the potential for a ground loop, if you´re unlucky.
 
Splitting an individual power port into two pedals is only incorrect if you turn on both of the pedals hooked to the same splitter y cable at one time.

If you never do that then split as many as you wish. Chances are you might turn both pedals on at once and then you will create excessive load on the unit and decrease voltage at the pedals, or possibly damage the PS.
 
Well, if the combined current draw of the pedals is within the specs of the output the pedals will certainly not see decreased voltage and it won´t damage the power supply either.
 
I used the splitter cables and my whole pedal board shut down. I removed the splitters and all is fine......except I had to remove 3 pedals. None of my pedals would power on. It was baffling. I had to quickly unhook everything and hope that the batteries in my pedals would last for the gig. This happened this weekend. I have not had time to toy with things to see what went wrong. It was baffling.
 
I have two Friedman pedals hooked to one output on my PP2+ without issue, even running both at the same time. I saw in another thread where Dave replied that the Friedman pedals draw only about 12ma so you should be able to power multiple Friedman pedals on any of the ports without issue, I am using one of the higher output ports just to be safe. Also, I am using the multi connector cable from a Spark power supply (basically same thing as a one spot).

As above its all about the MA draw of each pedal. Ports 1-4 are 9v with 100ma available, 5-6 are still 9v (assuming the dip switches are all set to normal) but have 250ma output, port 7-8 are also 100ma but have hte sag control. So if you read the manual of your pedals and find the current draw you could figure out how to divy them up. That being said, If I were powering that many pedals I would suggest upgrading to the MONDO or another PS with more outputs. The Friedman PS gives you 350ma per port and has 10 ports so much higher power capability.
 
I have a walrus pheonix, powers 15 pedals, ive been using it for 2 yrs and no probs.
Handles the higher voltage pedals like strymon timeline and bigsky, also has 18v outputs.
 
Calculate actual pedal usage for the desired pedals and compare to maximum milliamperage.
 
Try to avoid daisy-chaining them, as they'll run much quieter if they each have an isolated power supply. (and like the above posts say, just add up the amperage to ensure you're not exceeding what your supply has to offer, which is doubtful...unless you're using a ton of Strymon or Empress pedals)
 
I have a Truetone 1 SPOT PRO CS12 with 12 Isolated Outputs. I run 15 pedals and a Friedman buffer patch bay thing.

I basically scoured the manuals and internet for specs on all my pedals, put them in an excel sheet listing volts and mA. Figured out which ones I could group and which needed to be isolated then picked up a Truetone 5 way splitter and split one of my 250 mA jacks among 5 pedals that ranged from 17mA to 29mA each. No probs yet and yeah I did turn them all on at the same time to see what would happen lol :lol: :LOL:
 
Dave L":263j82fg said:
It 100% boils down to the power (mA) consumtion of the pedals and how much max juice the outputs have. With each split you also have the potential for a ground loop, if you´re unlucky.
Click to expand...

This. ^^^^

Most I've ever gotten was 12 pedals from one PP2. Ground loops can (and did for me) become a problem, but I think some of the newer splitter cables from VL only have the ground connected to one of the two outputs. Either that or I got a bad cable or two. One side of the split always worked but the other wouldn't work by itself, only when I had both connected. :confused:
 
UltraGary":36ox91m7 said:
Try to avoid daisy-chaining them, as they'll run much quieter if they each have an isolated power supply. (and like the above posts say, just add up the amperage to ensure you're not exceeding what your supply has to offer, which is doubtful...unless you're using a ton of Strymon or Empress pedals)
Click to expand...

I´m not sure they will be any more quiet on a separate isolated output unless the daisychaining has created a ground loop, since the power distributed is the same. You really need to try out individual pairs of pedals to see if they work together on a split without added hum.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top