Drive pedals that can run at 12v or 18v

slowpogo

Active member
I've built the Informant and the Mach 1. Both sounded pretty good but didn't quite live up to the hype.

Recently I reconfigured my board, and suddenly I thought these pedals sounded a lot better. I was getting the hype! The catch? I had accidentally powered them with 12v! Not only did they not fry, they went from "meh" to "wow!"

Got me wondering, what other pedalpcb drives can run beyond 9v?
 
Pretty much anything that doesn’t have a charge pump, as long as the electrolytic caps (the ones that see full supply voltage at least) are high enough voltage.

I like to order 50v electros as they usually are small enough to fit on the board (sometimes not the 100ufs though) so I can experiment with different voltages.
 
Interesting. The Informant uses a charge pump, yet it takes 12v okay...I played it a few hours before realizing my error and it's fine.
 
Interesting. The Informant uses a charge pump, yet it takes 12v okay...I played it a few hours before realizing my error and it's fine.
It looks like the build docs spec an LT1054 which according to the data sheet absolute max supply voltage is 16v.

Keep in mind that if it is doubling voltage, it would double 9v to about 17v to 18v, and it would double 12v to 22v to 24v. Once again as long as all the other parts downstream can handle that, you’re good.

I don’t know how robust the LT1054 is or how fast it would die if you gave it 18v, I’ve mostly used max1044’s and tc1044’s in the past and in my limited experience they tend to die instantly if given even a little over their max rating.
 
The PedalPCB Powersound would be an excellent candidate for a build without the charge pump. Then you could run it at 9, 12, or 18 vDC.

My Vick Audio Overdriver is set up this way. It simply accepts 9-18 vDC because it's component's are rated for that.
 
I've built the Informant and the Mach 1. Both sounded pretty good but didn't quite live up to the hype.

Recently I reconfigured my board, and suddenly I thought these pedals sounded a lot better. I was getting the hype! The catch? I had accidentally powered them with 12v! Not only did they not fry, they went from "meh" to "wow!"

Got me wondering, what other pedalpcb drives can run beyond 9v?
Might have to build a 3rd one and try that, as I was underwhelmed too with it. Found it nice, but was looking for that “wow factor”.
 
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