I made another mod to my Helix Board.
For a reminder, this is what it used to look like:
The change I've made is with that little black box on the far right. That holds a 9 volt battery and powers the LEDs on the guitar switch I made. You can see the red LED lit on the switch.
Lately, I've been wanting hard wired 9 VDC power to the switch, so I don't have to bother with keeping the battery recharged for the switch LEDs.
So, this mod is gonna add a power interface for the board. It will provide mains power to the Helix as well as provide 9 VDC to the LEDs in the guitar switch.
This shot shows the enclosure for everything. In this pic I've already drilled the holes for the DC power jack that will lead to the switch, the hole for the power to the Helix (it has the grommet in it), and I've cut the hole for the actual IEC AC inlet.
Here's a shot of the AC inlet. This is not just a simple switched power inlet. It is a medical-grade filtered AC power inlet. So, this power interface will provide filtered power to the system.
To provide the 9 VDC power, I installed a 9 V power transformer with DC rectifier and filter. All I did was procure a simple AC/DC 9 V wall wart. I cut the wall wart case open so I could do a little custom wiring. This was much cheaper and less hassle than trying to procure individual parts and construct my own 9 VDC power converter.
In this shot, I've epoxied the transformer into place and the clamp is just holding it while everything dries. This also shows the wiring to the DC jack . The transformer is also supported internally when the enclosure is sealed up.
This is just a shot of the aluminum bracket I made to hold every thing in place:
Finally, we get to some assembled pics.
Here is a side pic showing the AC inlet:
Here's a shot from the rear showing the power lead to the guitar switch. I added a label to the back.
Here's a shot from the front:
Finally, a top-down shot:
I've played with this a bit. In testing, it is very clean and quiet and works great.
Also, it's hard to make out in the pic above showing the label, but I wired the DC power to be center-negative instead of the center-positive polarity most often found with general household items. The reason for this is that most guitar pedals, especially the kind that take a battery, use a center-negative connection. Not all pedals use this, but the majority do. This is especially true of pedals like Boss and Ibanez. The reason I did that is so that if I ever want to run a couple random pedals with my Helix (it can take external pedals), I'm already wired for it. I would just need a DC daisy-chain cable, which I already have. Incidentally, when I wired up my guitar switch, I did wire it up to be center-negative for backwards compatibility with most 9 VDC guitar pedal power supplies.
Anyway, this was a fun project, it works great, and it will be nice not to have to think about keeping a battery charged for the LEDs on my guitar switch. Having constant filtered AC power will be nice, too.
For a reminder, this is what it used to look like:
The change I've made is with that little black box on the far right. That holds a 9 volt battery and powers the LEDs on the guitar switch I made. You can see the red LED lit on the switch.
Lately, I've been wanting hard wired 9 VDC power to the switch, so I don't have to bother with keeping the battery recharged for the switch LEDs.
So, this mod is gonna add a power interface for the board. It will provide mains power to the Helix as well as provide 9 VDC to the LEDs in the guitar switch.
This shot shows the enclosure for everything. In this pic I've already drilled the holes for the DC power jack that will lead to the switch, the hole for the power to the Helix (it has the grommet in it), and I've cut the hole for the actual IEC AC inlet.
Here's a shot of the AC inlet. This is not just a simple switched power inlet. It is a medical-grade filtered AC power inlet. So, this power interface will provide filtered power to the system.
To provide the 9 VDC power, I installed a 9 V power transformer with DC rectifier and filter. All I did was procure a simple AC/DC 9 V wall wart. I cut the wall wart case open so I could do a little custom wiring. This was much cheaper and less hassle than trying to procure individual parts and construct my own 9 VDC power converter.
In this shot, I've epoxied the transformer into place and the clamp is just holding it while everything dries. This also shows the wiring to the DC jack . The transformer is also supported internally when the enclosure is sealed up.
This is just a shot of the aluminum bracket I made to hold every thing in place:
Finally, we get to some assembled pics.
Here is a side pic showing the AC inlet:
Here's a shot from the rear showing the power lead to the guitar switch. I added a label to the back.
Here's a shot from the front:
Finally, a top-down shot:
I've played with this a bit. In testing, it is very clean and quiet and works great.
Also, it's hard to make out in the pic above showing the label, but I wired the DC power to be center-negative instead of the center-positive polarity most often found with general household items. The reason for this is that most guitar pedals, especially the kind that take a battery, use a center-negative connection. Not all pedals use this, but the majority do. This is especially true of pedals like Boss and Ibanez. The reason I did that is so that if I ever want to run a couple random pedals with my Helix (it can take external pedals), I'm already wired for it. I would just need a DC daisy-chain cable, which I already have. Incidentally, when I wired up my guitar switch, I did wire it up to be center-negative for backwards compatibility with most 9 VDC guitar pedal power supplies.
Anyway, this was a fun project, it works great, and it will be nice not to have to think about keeping a battery charged for the LEDs on my guitar switch. Having constant filtered AC power will be nice, too.
