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Paleopete, Ive noticed that you use a lot of pedals for your sound, What kind of power supply do you use or do you just carry a big wad of batteries with you? Im thinking about building a pedal board and need whatever advice you or anyone can give. Ive got a wah-wah,tuner,distortion,chorus,whammy pedal, and delay pedal. At this point this is what I have. I am trying to figure out what it would cost to build a board versus buying one. These days there are some real neat boards out there.

I guess this thread is to discuss boards and how you set them up.

A lot is going to depend upon who manufactures the pedals you intend to use. The Boss pedals I have on my board (that I am not using at this time) automaticly turn on when you plug into the input jack. It is a real PIA because if you leave them linked on your board the batteries will be dead in short order. I left batteries in mine but used a multiple jack chain D/C converter to access everything (except the wireless receaver). as long as the converter jacks are plugged into the individual pedals the units stay off, thereby saving your batts as a standby. When you plug into A/C power it all is hot and ready to go.
As you shop for pedals pay attention to how ther are powered, and what activates them. that will determine how many or what type of power sourse you will need.
Hope this helps John.

The boards you saw in my picture were part of a lot of 10 Digitech pedals. It was a floor model at a guitar store. It's powered and all pedals are screwed to the board. The cool thing about it is, it's angled. Next I plan on putting an actual power conditioner inside of it (I really only use 1 of them). The con of it is, not all pedals fit on it.

Building your own would be way cheaper than buying one. The prices they ask are freakin robbery for what it is.

A friend of mine built one out of wood for about $10, and screwed a power strip to it. It worked fine. Looked like hell though.

I figure I can make one out of wood and find an old suitacase to put it in.

Your right, these things are expensive and I guess you can spend a lot of money.

Paleopete, Ive noticed that you use a lot of pedals for your sound

Actually "a lot" is a misunderstanding. I use my guitar and amp to get my sound, pedals to accent it. I have 5 pedals on my board, including the volume pedal, plus an A/B switch to go to both amps. Will soon be building another and mounting it too.

I made mine on a plain 1 x 12 about 2 1/2 feet long, 2" velcro to hold everything on. It's the "industrial strength" stuff, and I can pick up the entire board and carry it around by any pedal, it's good stuff. About $6 at wally world.

In order, first thing in the chain is a Arion SAD1 analog delay (just removed the compressor I almost never use and replaced it with the delay), then a Dan Electro Rocky Road (sort of a flanger, supposed to be a leslie simulator), then a Marshall Bluesbreaker overdrive, then Ibanez SD9 Sonic Distortion finally into the volume pedal. Also planning to build a true bypass box for all but the first one, they're sucking tone out of my rig. But I need to keep the first pedal for a buffer. That has to wait till I can afford the parts and box though...which means I need to find a damn band...music money pays for equipment...Oh, and I goofed, a Shure wireless is first in the chain actually, I keep forgetting about it, it's backwards polarity from the rest and requires its own wall wart. After the volume pedal the signal goes to the A/B switch, so I can send it to either the clean Peavey MX or the el rauncho deluxe Super Reverb, depending on the sound I want.

So that's 4 effects, volume pedal, wireless and A/B switch. new board will be about 3 feet long to fit the wireless and A/B switch, and allow for some room between them. Having them too close together makes it difficult, especially in the dark, I tend to hit two switches at once sometimes.

For power I picked up a 9VDC wall wart rated at 800 mA, most pedals take about a 200-250mA adapter, so that's enough to run all 4 if I need, which is absolutely never. Usually the delay will be always on, and either distortion or overdrive depending on the sound I want. Rocky Road pedal is used only sparingly when I want a flanger/chorus type sound (3 or 4 times a night usually).

Then I got some contact strips and soldered together a power splitter, using the ends from dead wall warts or even live ones the wrong voltage, Goodwill stores usually have them for a buck, it's more than that to get just the connectors at radio shack and the crap they sell at radio shack is, well...crap... Picked up a project box the size of a deck of cards at a local electronics supply house to put it all in, and a female power plug, everything stays permanently connected except the wall wart, only have to plug in the one, no more extension cord with 4 of them....

Right now I'm undecided about the wireless though, since I have to run another wall wart for it I might keep setting it on top of the amp, but that means another long cable running back to the pedalboard instead of a short one to the pedal beside it......decisions decisions...the thing is great though, no more tripping over the guitar cable that of course just hgas to hang there under my feet...the rest are alll duct taped to the stage in a neat, straight line to the amps.