Makita pedal board

Gear & Tools Talk 🔊 Amplification & Effects
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I have been trying to sort out a portable setup that I can take with me when I am away from home (which will be fairly often this year). I’ve been having some trouble with ground hum and decided it would probably be better to just run off batteries. Then I got to thinking that I have a lot of 18V Makita power tools and a bunch of batteries and chargers, so wouldn’t it be good if I could make a Makita-powered pedal board. Well, here it is…

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This is the 3D printed battery holder.

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If anyone is interested in more details I’d be happy to describe the setup.

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I think that’s genius! Now you need to cover some drill music.

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Obviously I need to start learning some songs from this band… Men at Work

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Guitarist and engineer, Alan. Looks great. How does it sound? Hum all gone?

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Yes! Completely silent. :hear_no_evil:

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Ingenius. Quick, patent it before Ryobi copy it and add it to their ever-expanding One+ range :rofl:

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cool idea! now the obvious next step is finding what gives the better tone, makita or bosch :laughing:

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wow! that’s some cool creative thinking. :sunglasses: Love it!

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@oztelemann great idea Alan, but don’t pedals use 12 volts?

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This is the next step:
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Cheers,

Keith

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that’s neat! how much time do you get out of it? If you can get enough time to make it to a break then trade out the battery, you’d have a handy thing. I have no idea how much current the pedals draw, but I doubt they are designed with battery in mind.

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Most are actually 9V. Especially the ones that also run on batteries.

Cheers,

Keith

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hmm, so there are battery-based pedals… but I am guessing those are purpose built.

Adding a buck switching regulator (9V) would not be hard to do on this. Might need to shield it if the switching frequency gets into the audio.

Did you really do this only for the hum? Do we know why (from engineering perspective) we have hum in pedals? Is it just low-budget (or low knowledge) power design?

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No.

Every Boss Compact pedal ever made can run off a 9V battery, as well as lots of pedals from Ibanez (Tube Screamer, etc.), MXR (Phase 90, Dynacomp), Jim Dunlop (Cry Baby), Digitech and many others.

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Battery powered pedals are very common.

Cheers,

Keith

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Same with Zoom. My multistomp is mains adapter or 2xAAs. :sunglasses:

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thanks. guess y’all know I don’t have any pedals! :slight_smile:

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'Cept for the ‘One pedal to rule them all’ :rofl:
(Line6 Helix LT)

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No batteries!

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Some people think a battery sounds better than mains supply, especially Fuzz? I’ve a Raptor Fuzz which has a power sag knob to imitate/dial in just the right amount of dying battery sound.