strange power problem last night.....

[lefrash]

I wonder if any of you (more technical than me) can explain this.


I currently run a harley benton Junior powering a mix of digital and analogue pedals and a seperate 9v addapter running a zoom ms60b. The reason i dont run them all through the harley benton is not giving enough juice to them all so it makes my ms60b cut out every so often. This has worked absolutely fine at every gig I've used it (around 15 gigs so far and of course a weekly practice). Last night, I plugged into the supplied extension socket at the front of the stage and 30 seconds into the gig my digital pedals started to flicker on and off rendering my board useless. I then plugged it directly into the wall socket and it done the exact same thing. Almost as if not enough juice was getting to it. Today I have tested this to the max, putting on my power sucking pedals, and in my own flat its been absolutely fine.

The double socket which i was plugged into last night had an extension cable poweriing the whole backline. Is it very much a possiblility that it was the power source that was causing it rather than the HB junior and seperate 9v adapter?

I have never experienced this before, and I must admit, the band before us had a massive pedal boards and didnt seem to affect them.

Is this something I should worry about or was it likely the power source?

[HowieBass]

If the ring main was being overloaded (too much current drawn) then I'd expect the circuit breaker to trip at the fusebox and everything on that circuit would lose power. The sockets you were plugging your mains adaptor into might have been worn inside and there could have been intermittent arcing (the sort of thing that causes fires). Do the pins on the plug look ok or is there any blackening visible?

[lefrash]

Thanks for the reply. The plug seems absolutely fine. And the pedal board does seem to be working finbe again. So it seems the only thing different is the actual wall socket and the pubs power supply.

[cheddatom]

I can't think of any reason a mains supply would reduce the current your PSU can supply. It would cut out all together if it was overloaded as Howie said.

I would say either way you want a better PSU which can handle your whole pedalboard

[HowieBass]

The PSU has worked perfectly every time in other places and has only misbehaved at this one venue - to me that suggests the problem originates in the venue. It may well be that the Harley Benton Junior copes less well than other PSUs when faced with a poor quality mains supply (fluctuating supply voltage, induced RF noise and so on) and if the same problem crops up elsewhere then maybe it'll be time to go shopping...

[lefrash]

I am currently testing the power supply with my normal pedals plus an additional 3 pedals daisy chained to see if it does the same thing. I cant get it to do the same. Perhaps it was my mini extension lead that i used to combine the HB junior and the single 9v adapter. Strangely enough, until I got the HB junior I was actually just daisy chaining 5 pedals (including the ms60b) off the single 9v adapter and it worked OK apart from the added noise and beeps I was getting from the digital pedals.

Doesnt exactly fill me with confidence going forward! haha. Thanks for your inputguys.

[HowieBass]

Might be worth checking that extension lead, both plug and socket. I know some power bricks can be so bulky that you struggle to get them securely plugged into a multiway adaptor if they're right next to another plug already in there; though this might not be relevant in your case.