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Very, very small isolated PSU needed.


dave_bass5
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I’m looking to  power just a Smothhound wireless and Becos comp. I was hoping i could do this with my 1 Spot wall wart. It works as far as powering but i get a huge ground loop.

Was thinking of the Palmer PWT-04, which is just under £50 on Amazon.

Will this work?, anything smaller?.

Cheers.

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Cheers guys. 
I've got the reverse adapter. The SH works fine on its own with the 1 Spot, as it does with any of my power supplies. It’s when I try and split the power with other pedals that I’m having an issue. A very loud hum. 
Becos works with other pedals using the same PSU, inc my Line6 G30. 

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The issue exists as long as you use that SHound. Polarity change may equal that you need to isolate the signals, too. Transformer would be a good choice. Neutrik has had parts to build a very small isolator, but there has to be others, too.

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26 minutes ago, itu said:

The issue exists as long as you use that SHound. Polarity change may equal that you need to isolate the signals, too. Transformer would be a good choice. Neutrik has had parts to build a very small isolator, but there has to be others, too.

Thanks. All i wanted was a small wireless system that doesn't need anything special to work with it, just like my Line 6 G30. Ive not read of any others having this issue when using it on a pedal board, although maybe they are using a separate PSU just for that one device.

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12 hours ago, AJ567 said:

You could add one of the gigrig isolation adapters and carry on using your one spot. Not cheap but a very neat solution.

This is exactly what I did with my. Smoothhound back in the day, on a huge board full of analog and digital effects. Worked perfectly,

Edited by CameronJ
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29 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

This is exactly what I did with my. Smoothhound back in the day, on a huge board full of analog and digital effects. Worked perfectly,

im not very technically minded, but is that different from using an isolated supply like my Cioks?

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49 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

im not very technically minded, but is that different from using an isolated supply like my Cioks?

Your SH shouldn't be noisy with a decent isolated PSU. The Ciocks is top notch. 

There is an issue with greater noise with some of the early SH production units (see my post in Aug 2019 on the SH thread), which has been dealt with on later units.

Chris kindly took mine in and sorted the issue. He offered to do it for free, but given I had bought second hand and it was long out of warranty I felt not paying him something for his time and materials would have been taking the proverbial, so I got him to agree a fair repair / upgrade price. All sorted and working fine now. 

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8 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Even Chris at Smooth hound said there shouldn't be any real issues, even with the SH PSU

For anything other than the older production runs before he changed the sensitivity. Remind him of his conversation with me last summer! 

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6 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

im not very technically minded, but is that different from using an isolated supply like my Cioks?

The end result is the same technically, this method just allows you to get isolated outputs from a non-isolated PSU such as a One Spot.

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10 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

The end result is the same technically, this method just allows you to get isolated outputs from a non-isolated PSU such as a One Spot.

Ah ok thanks. I had said earlier in the thread that i was getting a high pitched whine with my Ciok’s, so that seems to indicate even an isolated PSU isnt going to work in this case. 

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2 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

Ah ok thanks. I had said earlier in the thread that i was getting a high pitched whine with my Ciok’s, so that seems to indicate even an isolated PSU isnt going to work in this case. 

To be fair though, not all isolated PSUs are created equal. There are different means by which manufacturers isolate their outputs - I know there are switching power supplies and linear power supplies but I’m not particularly well-read on the differences between the two. So there’s a chance you’ll find different results between your Cioks and a One Spot + GigRig Isolator. The only way to find out is to try it I guess.

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36 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

To be fair though, not all isolated PSUs are created equal. There are different means by which manufacturers isolate their outputs - I know there are switching power supplies and linear power supplies but I’m not particularly well-read on the differences between the two. So there’s a chance you’ll find different results between your Cioks and a One Spot + GigRig Isolator. The only way to find out is to try it I guess.

To be honest I’m not going any further with this. If everything else works ok, even my G30, then i don’t want anything that needs extra hardware to do the same job. Ill chalk this up to a faulty unit. The Cioks is no slouch when it comes to powering 7 pedals. If that cant handle it I’m out. 

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This PSU is tiny!

HB Iso-5 PSU.jpg

And at under £50 new (inc P&P) not going to break the bank.

Was a bit worried about how decent it is at providing well isolated outputs, given that it's so lightweight / compact even compared to a Ciocks DC5. So I've tried it out with two units simultaneously that hate non isolated outputs: Smoothhound and Zoom multi-fx (B1X-4). Chain was SH-->Zoom-->amp

Sailed through, not a whine or buzz to be heard. I even put my SH literally on top of the Iso-5 to maximise interference and there were still no issues.

I do think your SH whine @dave_bass5 was completely down to having one of the older run units. As I mentioned, Chris has sorted this on the newer runs and kindly fixed my older run model so it was no longer an issue.

Edited by Al Krow
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19 hours ago, moley6knipe said:

^ Wot Al said.... those are GREAT isolated PSUs for the money. Brilliant things!

That's very reassuring to hear from someone else who has had one of these, and for a while longer than me, that they are a good piece of kit. 

Sounds like I can slot under my replacement HB 50M mini "budget" board, with confidence then!

(FWIW, I sent my first HB 50M back as the hard case is somewhat vast! I've gone for the more compact soft case instead, which will also be a fair bit lighter). 

Edited by Al Krow
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Perhaps a silly question but when you used the Cioks were the two pedals on seperate outputs? As in, were they definitely isolated from each other? Because if you had them on a daisy chain from the same ouput then they may be on an isolated psu but they wouldn't be isolated from each other.

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2 minutes ago, Jack said:

Perhaps a silly question but when you used the Cioks were the two pedals on seperate outputs? As in, were they definitely isolated from each other? Because if you had them on a daisy chain from the same ouput then they may be on an isolated psu but they wouldn't be isolated from each other.

Yep, no daisy chaining. As you say, id be back to square one if i did that and would have got the same loud humming i had with the wall warts.

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Where's this PSU been all my life?!

Slots comfortably below a "flat" pedal board.

Delivers 1.9A vs my Trutone 1Spot CS6 1.6A vs former Ciocks DC5 0.9A. I mention those two 'cos they are two very good PSUs which can also work well under a flat board.

It provides two 500mA outputs with variable 9V/12V/18V which are the most common alternatives

AND costs much less than either the 1Spot or Ciocks!

PB - 2003mini II.jpg

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