Powering a "sidecar" pedalboard build
 

Hello fellow TBers. I'm seeking some input on an idea I had yesterday for a little auxiliary pedalboard I plan on making. Here's the back story...

I've always been a bit of a minimalist when it comes to effects on my bass. I currently run a PT mini with my DI, comp, tuner, and a micro pog for when I want to get crazy ;) I fabricated a bracket and mounted a DC Brick under the board because it fits perfectly between the rails. So, I'm just starting to play for a girl who plays pretty much straight pop music and her music doesn't necessarily require other effects, but it could benefit from some effects on my end. I'd like to not have to rework my board every time I play for her because I have other gigs that I want to keep everything just how it is. So my thought is...
To build a little auxiliary board that I can keep my dirt and delays and other such things on. Easy enough. I have a bunch of extra outlets on my DC Brick that I don't use... Perfect. So I could just splice and extend cables to get me there, but that's too easy and I'd have to deal with either extra cable dangling around or I'd have to plug them in every time, and let's be honest who wants to do that. All that being said, I'm trying to think of a small multi pin connector that I can mount to the side of my existing board with the cabling permanently mounted and plugged into the power source, and on the aux board I'll just have a small dangling loom of dc power that I can plug right in to the multi pin quick connector. The purpose being to not disrupt my current setup and to be able to add a couple effects to my chain without adding a power supply. Without doing anything more than rerouting a 1/4" cable actually.

Any thoughts or ideas y'all?

And I'm sure some of you are just going to say that I'm way over thinking it... I know I may be... But I'm a tinkerer and that's the fun.

Step 1: Buy a visual sound 1 to 5 or 1 to 8 daisy chain adapter.

Step 2. Chop it so that you have one of the exposed plugs and the recessed plug on one cable and the remaining exposed plugs on the other cable. You should probably insulate the ends of the cut portion of cable from each other and other external metals here. I stripped the cable, cut each wire to different lengths, folded them back and put heatshrink over them, but there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Step 3. Put the cable with the mismatched ends on your power supply. Put the other cable on your pedals, leaving one plug free close to where you want to attach to your main board.

Step 4. ????

Step 5. Plug the recessed connector from the power board into the exposed connector from the satellite board.

Step 6. Profit.

I've done this in the past when I ran a split board that I stacked in a case. It worked quite well and I never had any problems with it.

I hope what I wrote is clear.



step 4 is superfluous

Here's a thought, but would require an extra pedal on your main board - if you can bear that ;)

Add a boss LS-2 where appropriate on your main board. You can then plug your auxiliary board into one of the LS-2's effects loops, engage to... errr... engage. Bypass it when not in use.
Use a daisy chain power cable as suggested above on to power you auxiliary board. You can power this from the handy DC outlet on the LS-2.

If you wanted to get clever, perhaps you could build your own mini version of a pedal snake, and have both send and returns and the power in one handy short loom cable. It might even work if you custom wired a DIN cable(?)

What about one of those pedal power supplies?
Link to Dunlop Pedal Power.

These are a bit pricey, but expressly designed to provide sufficient voltage and current for multiple devices.

Thanks guys. I hadn't thought about a line selector pedal. bgavin, that's what I have mounted under my existing board and I'm trying to avoid adding another power supply. I should also add that I run some of my pedals at 18v which is why I was thinking about running isolated lines.

You can get voltage adaptors that up-convert from 9v to 12, 18 whatever. I have a couple of 12v gigrig ones for my two TC Nova pedals. They make isolators too BTW.
http://www.thegigrig.com/acatalog/Mo...er-Supply.html

Although I would probably go with the godlyke Iso-pump if I were to buy one now as it's multi-voltage.
http://www.godlyke.com/power-all/god...tage-converter