Battery power supply for small pedal board

[cooder]

Something from left field: I wanted to make me a small portable board with rechargeable battery powered. Quick grab and go, good for jam sessions and also to quickly throw some pedals on there for testing etc.
I have done one in the past similar using 18650 batteries, and that worked well too. However, I found swapping batteries and having enough grunt important in this, so I bought a charger and batteries for 18V powered drills (same as I use in workshop anyway) and gutted the charging station to turn it into battery holder and put a buck converter inside to regulate voltage down to 9.4 V and keep it constant there.
I stuck two little voltmeters in, the blue one shows battery voltage, red one show outgoing voltage to pedals. So I always can see if voltage in battery drops and quickly stick replacement in when needed. Should run quite a bit though, the smaller battery is rated at 2.5 Ah and the bigger one at 4 Ah.
Made a wee wooden board that holds up to 7 x 125B boxes and recess for the power supply. Board is made from NZ native red beech.
Here we go, a bit picture heavy to show the process:

Cutting out holes for 9V jacks and voltage displays. Dremel works great for this, if you try to drill plastic with a normal spiral bit it often cracks, ask me how I know.

Buck converter and voltage displays installed.

The wooden pedal board:

 

[jimilee]

Something from left field: I wanted to make me a small portable board with rechargeable battery powered. Quick grab and go, good for jam sessions and also to quickly throw some pedals on there for testing etc.
I have done one in the past similar using 18650 batteries, and that worked well too. However, I found swapping batteries and having enough grunt important in this, so I bought a charger and batteries for 18V powered drills (same as I use in workshop anyway) and gutted the charging station to turn it into battery holder and put a buck converter inside to regulate voltage down to 9.4 V and keep it constant there.
I stuck two little voltmeters in, the blue one shows battery voltage, red one show outgoing voltage to pedals. So I always can see if voltage in battery drops and quickly stick replacement in when needed. Should run quite a bit though, the smaller battery is rated at 2.5 Ah and the bigger one at 4 Ah.
Made a wee wooden board that holds up to 7 x 125B boxes and recess for the power supply. Board is made from NZ native red beech.
Here we go, a bit picture heavy to show the process:

Cutting out holes for 9V jacks and voltage displays. Dremel works great for this, if you try to drill plastic with a normal spiral bit it often cracks, ask me how I know.

Buck converter and voltage displays installed.

The wooden pedal board:

Oh hell yeah, that is DI fuckin Y right there. I love it.

 

[PunchySunshine]

Something from left field: I wanted to make me a small portable board with rechargeable battery powered. Quick grab and go, good for jam sessions and also to quickly throw some pedals on there for testing etc.
I have done one in the past similar using 18650 batteries, and that worked well too. However, I found swapping batteries and having enough grunt important in this, so I bought a charger and batteries for 18V powered drills (same as I use in workshop anyway) and gutted the charging station to turn it into battery holder and put a buck converter inside to regulate voltage down to 9.4 V and keep it constant there.
I stuck two little voltmeters in, the blue one shows battery voltage, red one show outgoing voltage to pedals. So I always can see if voltage in battery drops and quickly stick replacement in when needed. Should run quite a bit though, the smaller battery is rated at 2.5 Ah and the bigger one at 4 Ah.
Made a wee wooden board that holds up to 7 x 125B boxes and recess for the power supply. Board is made from NZ native red beech.
Here we go, a bit picture heavy to show the process:

Cutting out holes for 9V jacks and voltage displays. Dremel works great for this, if you try to drill plastic with a normal spiral bit it often cracks, ask me how I know.

Buck converter and voltage displays installed.

The wooden pedal board:

Clean as a whistle! Well done!

 

[falco_femoralis]

Damn that is a clean board

 

[Harry Klippton]

Hey @cooder did you make your own daisy chain too? Where'd ya get the plugs? Also where'd you get the volt meters?

 

[Paradox916]

That’s pretty cool…. Now make it isolated

 

[cooder]

Hey @cooder did you make your own daisy chain too? Where'd ya get the plugs? Also where'd you get the volt meters?

Yep haha I did make the daisy chain myself as well. I don't like the premade daisy chains with way too mych cable floating around. I wonder if anyone out there has really good ways, other alternatives to make custom length daisy chains with good right angle plugs?
What I used at this stage is the standard garden variety plug from Tayda
https://www.taydaelectronics.com/hardware-tools/dc-power/dc-power-plug-2-1mm-x-5-5mm-x-9-5mm.html
then cut the end off, dremel a side hole into it, fiddle wires through, solder on, push back on (you can screw turn it at that point obviously, once it's all hooked up and tested I fill it with epoxy to make it bomb proof.

If anyone has better right angle connectors let me know. I don't like the right angle connectors that tayda has, I think above works better for me.

The voltmeters are from evilbay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2772562329...+azsefbSra+12JB/mqBMMwrQ==|tkp:Bk9SR-ryhtveZg

 

[Paradox916]

I’m curious with those batteries, is it any more noisy than a similar daisy chain

 

[cooder]

I’m curious with those batteries, is it any more noisy than a similar daisy chain

I couldn't detect any noise so far. Haven't used it at high volume band settings yet though.