Home Forums Help/Technical Questions Polarity Question

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  • #80810
    sylvester975
    Member

    I recently bought the EHX Knockout Attack Equaliser pedal. It is running through the following setup:

    Guitar > Boss TU-2 > EHX Knockout > Maxon OD-820 > Boss OD3 > Boss CE5

    I just bought the T-Rex Juicy Lucy to power them all, and then read that if you daisy chain pedals with different polarities it screws them up. My knowledge of this sort of stuff is minimal.

    The Knockout pedal seems to be Negative, the boss central negative (?!), can’t find the polarity of the Maxon anywhere. My question is… can I run them daisy chained on the same power supply without killing them?

    I set it up and switched it on for less than 5 seconds before unplugging it… not sure if I’m paranoid but the Maxon seems a lot more hissy than it used to be. Please help!

    #111763
    electro-melx
    Moderator

    a couple of questions..

    why are you chaining anything when you have a power supply with several outputs? The whole point of a multi-output supply is to stop you needing to daisy chain anything (and saving you the potential problems of doing it)

    also the maxon might be noisey because according to the specs it takes the 9v coming in and uses a DC-DC voltage converter to bump this up to 18 volts, if I’m right the Juicy Lucy provides 12v outputs, I’m not 100% that it’s a good idea putting 12v into something that’s designed to convert 9v into 18v already.

    to be honest I think you need to contact T-rex and Maxon, the boss pedals and the knockout should all be the same 9v center negative but I can’t say for sure they will be fine with 12v.

    #111765
    sylvester975
    Member

    Thanks for the reply.

    Yeh I guess I don’t need to daisy chain, but the guys at T-Rex seem to think chaining is better than using all the outputs (I have no idea why). The T-Rex Juicy Lucy claims it is also compatible with 9-volt pedals, so I thought it wouldn’t be an issue, maybe I’m wrong. I will get in contact with T-Rex about that.

    So just to clarify… The boss pedals and EHX Knockout are all center negative? The symbol on the actual pedals themselves would suggest that the boss are center negative but the EHX is just negative. If that is a stupid thing to say please forgive me. I’m a guitarist not a physicist. Wish I’d paid more attention at school.

    #111766
    electro-melx
    Moderator
    Quote:
    Thanks for the reply.

    Yeh I guess I don’t need to daisy chain, but the guys at T-Rex seem to think chaining is better than using all the outputs (I have no idea why). The T-Rex Juicy Lucy claims it is also compatible with 9-volt pedals, so I thought it wouldn’t be an issue, maybe I’m wrong. I will get in contact with T-Rex about that.

    So just to clarify… The boss pedals and EHX Knockout are all center negative? The symbol on the actual pedals themselves would suggest that the boss are center negative but the EHX is just negative. If that is a stupid thing to say please forgive me. I’m a guitarist not a physicist. Wish I’d paid more attention at school.

    ok first things first (that I’m 100% on!)

    The Boss pedals are all center negative as is the knockout (if it’s the new version not the vintage one) I suspect that only the center is marked a negative on the EHX because once you know that, the outer sleeve has to be positive by default.

    I don’t really understand why T-rex are telling you to chain them (usually) it is much better for each pedal to have their own isolated output, but I’m not familiar with that power supply so maybe i’m missing something, but it seems pointless even using it if you are going to chain everything off one outlet, that’s kind of the point of buying a multi-outlet power supply.

    I don’t really know anything about the maxon, I would email them about that.

    hope this helps a little.

    #111767
    sylvester975
    Member

    aah I get it now. The center is negative, the outside is positive. That’s what that symbol means. (Still no clue what that actually means, but hey). Same goes for the Maxon, just found out the spec for it: Center – / Sleeve +.

    To be honest I wanted the T-Rex Junior which runs 9V, but it’s out of stock everywhere in the UK, so I got the Juicy Lucy without noticing it’s 12V. Monday morning it’s getting returned to sender.

    Thanks a lot for your help, no more nooby questions from me.

    #111769
    Kevin Demuth
    Member

    Every Maxon pedal I’ve used has been centre negative, I think…

    Maxon OD-820?

    51RXV4BX9ML._SS500_.jpg

    9/10v ONLY, centre-negative.

    Manual: http://www.maxonfx.com/media/vintage.pdf

    #111770
    sylvester975
    Member

    That’s the one. Quality pedal by the way. My one doesn’t have the spec written on it like that though…

    #111771
    electro-melx
    Moderator
    Quote:
    aah I get it now. The center is negative, the outside is positive. That’s what that symbol means. (Still no clue what that actually means, but hey). Same goes for the Maxon, just found out the spec for it: Center – / Sleeve +.

    To be honest I wanted the T-Rex Junior which runs 9V, but it’s out of stock everywhere in the UK, so I got the Juicy Lucy without noticing it’s 12V. Monday morning it’s getting returned to sender.

    Thanks a lot for your help, no more nooby questions from me.

    It’s no problem…

    it looks like Hotrox have the FT jr in stock, if you can get your money back.

    http://www.hotroxuk.com/t-rex-junior-font-color-white-size-2-power-supply-8494-0.html

    so it looks like if you got that you could run each pedal off a separate outlet and all would be well, that’s what I would recommend if you can.

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