Multiple Power adapters

[Eric Jx]

I have quite a few piece of road gear that require power adapters (aka wall warts). They are a little annoying and they add to stage clutter.

 

I was wondering if there is a way to consolidate the power feeds? In other words have one power adapter with multiple power feed cables so I can power more than one device from one adapter.

 

I know they make products like this for cell phones charging as I use one now.

 

I'm not sure if it can be done for other devices.

 

I would assume at the very least, all the devices would have to be all AC or all DC.

 

 

[Ian Benhamou]

I use this:

 

Godlyke Power All

 

for my guitar pedalboard. Comes with a bunch of different adapters for different voltages. I don't know if it'll work for rack mount units. Guess it depends on the power supplies of each. Check the PDF for compatibility and look at the wall warts of your units and see if there's matching voltages, polarity and amperage.

 

[Sven Golly]

I was wondering if there is a way to consolidate the power feeds? In other words have one power adapter with multiple power feed cables so I can power more than one device from one adapter.

 

Take an inventory of your various devices, and list them with their respective power type (AC vs. DC), polarity (if DC), voltage and amperage. You'll likely find that there's no way for a single device to do what you want, without a fair amount of microprocessor control.

 

There are solutions available for guitar pedals, but those are very similar in voltage/amperage (usually 9V DC). You don't mention what your gear is, but I'm going to assume it's not 9V pedals.

 

The best solution for you, especially if it's wall warts (rather than 'line lump' supplies) is something like the PowerSquid:

 

http://www.powersquid.com/bmz_cache/a/aa13cc219eb4b276454d67a3968e24f6.image.153x300.jpg

[mynameisdanno]

The devices you describe are often used by guitarists with big pedalboards. Check out the Voodoo Labs products for starters, though I'm sure there are others making them too. They make a separate model with AC outputs.

 

The PedalGear JuiceBox appears to provide 5 isolated outputs, 4 DC and one AC, and a lot of other bells and whistles, but definitely priced higher.

 

[Eric Jx]

To clarify my devices all have "line lumps" as opposed to "wall warts". So the squid wouldn't help.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

[Eric Jx]

A question for those electrical engineers among us.

 

I know you have to match AC/DC, polarity, voltage exactly.

 

Do you have to match Amperage exactly?

Or do you just need a power adapter that meets or exceeds the Amperage needed to drive the device?

[Sven Golly]

To clarify my devices all have "line lumps" as opposed to "wall warts". So the squid wouldn't help.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

 

Then that tells me that you're using a variety of items with hugely disparate power requirements (okay, perhaps exaggerating) that you will be hard-pressed to find a single off-the-shelf solution for.

 

 

[J. Dan]

A question for those electrical engineers among us.

 

I know you have to match AC/DC, polarity, voltage exactly.

 

Do you have to match Amperage exactly?

Or do you just need a power adapter that meets or exceeds the Amperage needed to drive the device?

 

Meets or exceeds total requirements. So for instance, if you had 3 devices that take 12VDC and they were 300mA, 450mA, and 1.2A - then a 12VDC supply that can supply 2A would be suitable to power all three (actually, 1.95A, but 2A is more common). Realistically, it's not likely that all devices would require max current at the same time, but you want to size your power supply for that scenario to be safe.

 

Also, if you have an AC power supply and a device needs DC, chances are you can just add a rectifier diode. Most of those wall wart and lump power supplies are not very well regulated, but you'd be taking a chance in introducing noise.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Generally - meets or exceeds amperage requirements. However, the following cavaet applies: Many lower priced supplies are not well regulated. UNDER LOAD, they produce rated voltage; but with a substantially lower load, they may produce a good bit more than rated voltage.

 

If the supply is well-regulated, the above does not apply; however, for most of the modern "cheapest thing I could find" junk - it will apply.

 

Converting an AC output supply to DC requires at least a diode or pair or quad of diodes, and also filtration (at least a large electrolytic capacitor. Also, many of the OEM DC supplies may be regulated, and may produce several different voltages that are all needed.

 

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

A question for those electrical engineers among us.

 

I know you have to match AC/DC, polarity, voltage exactly.

 

Do you have to match Amperage exactly?

Or do you just need a power adapter that meets or exceeds the Amperage needed to drive the device?

 

There are numerous solutions. In the old touring days I had a fancy regulated power supply. These days I use a 1spot http://www.visualsound.net/index.php/products/1spot

 

it has all sorts of input adapters, polarity reversing adapters, daisy chains... a pretty well thought out an inexpensive piece of kit,

 

When it comes to amperage, the supply has to handle more than your needs. It is the same as loading down an AC supply.... if your wall socket is connected to a 20 amp fuse or circuit breaker and you try to power more than 20 amps worth of gear from it, you'll trip the fuse. When you are trying to use a power supply, if you ask it to deliver more than it can handle, there is no fuse, so bad things will happen to the supply.

 

Also, if you buy a supply, try to buy one with a little headroom after you've added all your pieces of gear together. No sense in running anything flat out all the time, gear seldom works well that way, and power supplies are no different.

[Bridog6996]

+1 for the Powersquid. I have about 4-5 of those things.

[Throbert]

Considering How sloppy most generic wallwart or line lump supplies are and if your required voltages are fairly close you might try a voltage common to all. you might try a variable PS to see what voltages will work on your different devices. With out over voltaging them, first try checking how low a voltage your devices will work on. when you find a voltage that several things will work on. Remember current is inversely proportional to voltage so a device ran at a lower than required voltage might use more current. Also as you load down the supply the voltage will probably drop so you will need to adjust. Ounce you figure out what you need, then you would get a well regulated PS that will maintain voltage as your load changes it will need to stay at voltage from no load to beyond the load you plan on dropping against it along with relatively maintaining the current needed. You may not be able to reduce down to one PS but you could eliminate quite a few.

Other than that you would be looking at something along the lines of a PC power supply. Their are other options like programmable high dollar units but I would just settle for an American DJ switch box and take my lumps

[Eric Jx]

Can you damage a device by supplying too little voltage to it?

 

Or would it just not function (or not function reliably)?

[Throbert]

If you apply the required voltage to a device and then slowly decreased the voltage, you would find a range where the device would continue to operate. As you continue to decrease voltage, it's own power circuits would begin to de-energize as the device faded off. There has to be a tolerance, otherwise nothing would work. this tolerance is plus or minus meaning your device can operate over the required voltage but at what amount is anybodies guess unless it's in the manual or tech support has those specs. As far as damage, again almost everything has tolerence most electronic devices self regulate until there's not enough then the regulation collapses and the circuit opens or just plain doesn't work, and in the other direction a fuse or breaker pops or it starts to smell like something is burning.

[JohnH]

I hated this problem too- power strips on the floor with wall warts- yuck! Here's what is helping me- I bought three of them.

 

 

http://www.furmansound.com/product.php?div=01&id=M-8x

 

Sometimes my rack is not near my keyboard rig, so I just have an extension cord with three plugs that goes into the rack with the M8, if the rack isn't underneath the keys on the stand, I'm only going to have a couple of plugs at most to plug into the extension cord. This seemed to clean up my guitar sound a bit as well- in venues with bad power although this is really not for power clean up- for that you need to spend $$$.

 

 

[Throbert]

or usethis with these

[J. Dan]

All of this is why I slimmed my rack down a while back. I used to have:

 

Furman Power Conditioner

Sax Wireles Receiver

Sax FX Module

Guitar Wireless Receiver

Guitar FX Module

Line Mixer (for keys)

8 ch Active DI

 

I cut it down quite a bit to:

Sax Wireless Receiver (no FX, let FOH worry about it)

Guitar FX (no wireless, I plug in with a long chord)

8-ch PASSIVE DI (has actual summing inputs for 2 keys)

 

Only 2 things to plug in, so I use a heavey ext chord with 3 grounded outlets. I just coil it up and toss it in the back of the rack. I run a power strip out to my keys for power, which both have normal plugs (no wall warts or lumps).

 

Simplified things quite a bit and also lightend up my rack.

 

So I'd also say, analyze your setup and see if it can be simplified. A lot of times we don't really need the things we think we do - we just want them. Like my sax effects, I had that in there so I could nail the sound on one song that we rarely did. A new DI replaced the old DI AND line mixer, and didn't need power. Do I really need to go wireless on guitar? I'm not the lead, have the time I'm stuck there singing anyway - when I do go out front, I just have to watch the cord now, no big deal. By eliminating all these, I didn't need the power conditioner anymore.

[J. Dan]

This got me thinking. I'm really surprised that a standard hasn't emerged over the years.

 

I work with industrial instrumentation for my day job, and the standard (if not AC powered) is 24VDC. You'd NEVER find anything that reqires anything else.

 

Now I understand many devices may need 5VDC for logic, or be designed around 9VDC for battery power. But if current draw is less than 1A (which it typically is, in these devices), voltage regulator chips can be bought for pennies in large quantities.

 

How simple would it be to have a standard 24VDC supply and standard power connector, then regulate the voltage internally to what you need? Have a rackmount unit like the AC power conditioners we have with multiple 24VDC outputs and standard plugs.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Ah, yes - but the industrial standard was externally imposed. Companies marketing to them have thousands of LARGE clients, who resuse to put up with odd-ball power devices (as a rule). You either make it standard, or it doesn't sell. If it costs $1 more in manufacturing, the clients pay the additional retail cost in order to purchase devices that are standard. The cost of downtime due to failure of a device and having to obtain an unusual power supply is high - and the companies won't tolerate it.

 

Musican Instrument companies, OTOH, marked to hundreds of thousands of individuals (and a few moderate size companies), who tolerate the inconsistencies. If the average muso REALLY likes the sound and feel, they will buy - wall warts, power lumps, and all. If we were more selective in our purchasing - and made sure the companies were aware - this type of situation would be largely rectified - especially since the cost of doing so is small.

 

Unfortunately, my theory above still does not explain idiotic decisions like no (or a single) mod wheel on a new keyboard design - UH, actually, it does - we still buy the product, although we complain about it.