Boss CE-2B power problem

[Jerry J]

I am getting ready to put my Boss CE-2B up for sale.


It works great with a battery. But when I plug a power supply in it doesn't work. I know that these take the ACA power supply but so does my OC-2's which have no problem running with the Pedal Power 2+. I don't have an ACA power supply to check and see it that's the issue. I'm thinking that possibly there is some contact issue in the power input jack.

Has anyone had an old Boss pedal that specified the ACA power supply and only worked with that specific (ACA) transformer?

[dannybuoy]

The pedals that say ACA only require a 12v power supply. HOWEVER, you can run them at 9v if daisy chained with another pedal. It's some strange effect due to them having a shared ground, but it does work. You can plug in a 9v supply and the LED is very dim, then power another pedal off of the same daisy chain and boom, that LED goes up to full brightness!

[Jerry J]

Originally Posted by dannybuoy

The pedals that say ACA only require a 12v power supply. HOWEVER, you can run them at 9v if daisy chained with another pedal. It's some strange effect due to them having a shared ground, but it does work. You can plug in a 9v supply and the LED is very dim, then power another pedal off of the same daisy chain and boom, that LED goes up to full brightness!

Awesome! I will give that a try. Thank you!

[Jerry J]

Unfortunately it didn't work.

I tried cleaning the contacts for the jack with a small piece of emory cloth and Craig's De-oxit. But still nothing.

I guess it's time to get the ohm meter and compare the CE-2B power jack to my OC-2's jack. I might even try swapping jacks to see if that works.

Dannybouy, thank you for the tip. I didn't know that as my experience with the early Boss ACA pedals has be with my two OC-2's and they work just fine on the Pedal Power 2+.

[Jerry J]

Ok, so I ohmed out the power jack on both the CE-2B and the OC-2. Without the power plug in the jack and with it in the jack (no actual power from the transformer) and found that both are working the same. So no power jack issues.

So now I'm thinking that it really does need the correct DC voltage. Unlike the OC-2 which may be forgiving and operate on the supplied voltage from a Power Pedal 2 the CE-2B must be more fussy. Now to chase down a transformer that would supply the correct voltage.

[dannybuoy]

I had that exact pedal - old Jap CE-2B with the older style skirted knobs, and it ran fine at 9v, but only when at least one other pedal was sharing the daisy chain. Not used a PP2 before though! Also I don't know what you mean when you say you 'ohmed' it out with a plug in and out of the jack? First thing to try is get a daisy chain connector and hook it up to the CE-2B and another 9v pedal and see what happens.

[Jerry J]

Originally Posted by dannybuoy

I had that exact pedal - old Jap CE-2B with the older style skirted knobs, and it ran fine at 9v, but only when at least one other pedal was sharing the daisy chain. Not used a PP2 before though! Also I don't know what you mean when you say you 'ohmed' it out with a plug in and out of the jack? First thing to try is get a daisy chain connector and hook it up to the CE-2B and another 9v pedal and see what happens.

I did try the daisy chain setup with a 1-spot and it didn't work.

As far as ohming the power input jack...
What I did was to check the continuity between the three wires on the power input jack. With the barrel plug out there is continuity between the two red wires. When the barrel plug is plugged into the power jack there is no continuity between the red wires but there is continuity between one of the red wires and the blue wire. (when there is no barrel plug plugged into the jack the battery is in the circuit. When you plug in the barrel plug the battery circuit is opened to by-pass the battery and the power supply circuit is closed. This is why when you have the power supply plugged into the pedal the battery doesn't drain.) I found that my CE-2B power jack works the same as the OC-2's. So I was able to conclude that the power jack on the CE-2B was fine.

I read up on the ACA circuitry and found that there is a resistor and diode in the DC circuit to drop the 12 volts from the ACA transformer. I'm thinking that this is affecting the 9 volts that is normally being supplied by the Pedal Power 2. One of the features of the PP2 is that by changing one of the DIP switches the PP2 will supply 12 volts for the ACA pedals. I haven't had a chance to try that yet. I'll post after I try that.

Sorry for the long drawn out explaination. And I sure do appreciate your help on this.

[dannybuoy]

Most strange. It worked for me with a 9v supply similar to a 1-Spot, and I haven't been smoking my socks because I've found the same advice from other threads and other websites! Try it at 12v... You can also mod it to either remove or short out that resistor on the dc jack.

[Jerry J]

Sure enough, switched the PP2+ over to the 12volts setting and bingo, we have power.

I could mod the pedal by taking out that resistor and diode. But I'm going to sell it so I'll just pass the info on to the buyer.