13th
A short review of the 1 SPOT pedal board power supply
The 1 SPOT pedal board power supply is a power brick that is designed to power up to eight of your guitar effects pedals without having to load 9v batteries in to each unit or taking up a lot of room on your power strip with individual power cords for each pedal. You can read about the unit here: http://tiny.cc/1spot
I have a small board for now and only needed to power a reverb, a chorus, an overdrive, and a tuner so the 8 plug daisy chain power cord had 4 extra plugs that I didn’t need. Fortunately, the combo pack came with several little rubber caps to cover the extra plugs, thus keeping them insulated and out of the way. It also means that when I decide to add more pedals, like a delay, a volume, or a wah, I’ll still have room on the daisy chain to power them.
The list of compatible pedals for the 1 SPOT is pretty long, but one of my pedals (a Washburn overdrive) wasn’t on the list so I wasn’t sure if it was going to work right off the bat. None the less, I strung it up along with the rest of the pedals and it powered up with no problem.
The combo pack came with a couple of adaptors for pedals that use a reversed polarity plug and also adaptors that connect directly to the 9v battery plug if a pedal is not configured to use external power. I didn’t need any of those so they are sitting in my box of cables for later use if need be.
The daisy chain plugs in to a connector at one end of a 4 foot cord. At the other end of the cord is the small power plug that is 1 SPOT’s big selling point. It’s designed to only take up one place on your power strip (hence the name) and thereby give you more room than a traditional power plug/wall wart.
Some people have commented about the 1 SPOT not being very clean electrically. However, in my initial tests I didn’t heard any buzz or hum.
As I play more with the 1 SPOT powering my modest pedalboard I may adjust my opinions, but so far I’m pleased with this very affordable piece of kit.
