Pedal Powering Help

[ctbass]

I have 7 pedals on my board powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power II. I want to add a Boss GE-7B EQ in.

I connected the cable to the pedal and the VLPP - nothing.
I change Power cables to the pedal - nothing
I dig out an old Boss wall wart - it works
I put in a 9v - it works
With the 9v in, I plug into the VLPP - nothing

Looking at the barrel end of the VL power cable and the Boss wall wart, the diameters are the same although the VL barrel is a bit longer.

This pedal is quite old, but it works with battery and wal wart.

Any ideas why its not working with the VLPP??

Thanks

 

[bongomania]

Very strange. I've had that kind of thing happen, but only in instances where the pedal needs more current than the VLPP can provide. The Boss EQ should not be drawing more than 100 mA I'd guess, so that shouldn't be the issue here.

Long shot, but are you 100% sure the cables you're using to the VLPP are not reverse-polarity?

Edit: waittaminute, you say the pedal is very old... it doesn't say it takes an "ACA" power supply on the bottom label does it?

 

[ctbass]

Very strange. I've had that kind of thing happen, but only in instances where the pedal needs more current than the VLPP can provide. The Boss EQ should not be drawing more than 100 mA I'd guess, so that shouldn't be the issue here.

Long shot, but are you 100% sure the cables you're using to the VLPP are not reverse-polarity?

Edit: waittaminute, you say the pedal is very old... it doesn't say it takes an "ACA" power supply on the bottom label does it?

ON the bottom it lists various voltages and corresponding ACA numbers for a Boss Adapter. How smart you are. Can you explain?

 

[bongomania]

AH HA! Boss "ACA" power gets a lot of people confused. Up until the mid-late '80s, "ACA" was a 12VDC supply. It has a resistor network at the DC jack which drops the voltage down from 12V to 9V. This means if you feed it 9V, it will drop that down to around 6V, which is not enough to power the circuit.

After the mid-late '80s (I've forgotten the exact year), Boss still used the term "ACA" for some pedals, but now it means an unregulated supply, instead of the normal modern regulated PSA supply.

I'm betting yours is the older version. Solution: switch one of your VLPP outputs to 12V.

 

[Smurf-o-Deth]

To you, sir, I give a tip of the hat.

 

[ctbass]

To you, sir, I give a tip of the hat.

AND a drop to the knee bow!!! Thanks Bongo!!!