Hilton And Goodrich Volume Pedals

Gary Walker · From: Morro Bay, CA

Keith, got the pedal on Monday the 12th and Wow, as I said on the electronics section of the forum, this beautiful Mullen sounds like a brand new guitar and has more life than anything I have run it through and thanks so much for a wonderful device and now it's off to the world of pro sounding pedalling, Gary

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Keith - Does your warning also apply to the old Goodrich pedals with the lightbulbs and photocells?

Lee, from South Texas

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Lee---Let's talk about electric drills. Back in the 1950's they were made of metal, and there wasn't a ground on the cord. They shocked and killed a lot of people. That is why modern electric drills are double insulated, plus they are made of non-conductive plastic, and they have grounds on the cord. Many 20 to 30 year old volume pedals, with 120 volt transformers inside the pedal are like the old metal drills from the 1950's. To add to this danger is the condition of transformers insulation that is 20 to 30 years old. The insulation on wiring 20 to 30 years old,is a concern, when dealing with 120 volts AC at 20 amps. So, I am going to let you answer your own question. Hope this information helps.

Pat Burns · From: Branchville, N.J. USA

rick w · From: smithfield,n.c.

I looked at a couple of pedals this past Sunday at Saluta. Where is the crome? Heck, I might not can play, but I might want to look good. Rick

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Rick, you can order a polished finish on anyone's pedal. In a very short time, being on the floor, a polished pedal pedal gets real nasty looking. The new finishes on my pedal ,and other manufacturer's pedals, can take abuse and look really good years after purchase. I don't know about other pedal makers, but since I came out with my new finish, no one has ordered a polished pedal. That tells me a lot! Take a look at the finish on some polished pedals that are one year old. Then look at the finish on my one year old pedals. I can see ,and understand, end plates and other things being polished. Most of a pedal is hidden anyway. Being on the foor, pedals really get scratched up quick. If a pedal being polished is imporant to you Rick, we can sell you a polished pedal. It does cost extra, and the polishing charge is not refundable.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

Keith Hilton wrote

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Bobby, several of the older light beam pedals had 120 volt transformers inside the pedal. They had 120 volt cords run from the wall plug to the pedal. The old Edwards light beam pedal went in the side, and the old Goodrich light beam pedal went in the rear of the pedal. A more modern light beam pedal that had a 120 volt AC transformer inside was the Morley light beam pedal. These Morley pedals were used by a lot of guitar players. You plugged these pedals directly to a 120 volt AC, 20 amp house electricity. The transformer was inside the pedal. The voltage was reduced to a lower voltage inside the pedal. The reason these pedals did not run off of batteries is because just about any kind of lights draw a lot of current. Kind of like leaving a flashlight on. The Goodrich pedal you describe only has a pre-amp to power. This consumes less than 10 mili-amps, and makes sense to power with a battery. Even though there is a pre-amp, there is also a pot in this pedal. Here is something that may be of interest to you. Did you ever wonder how batteries are rated? One of the ways batteries are rated is in terms of mili-amp hours. Most 9 volt batteries are rated around 125 mili-amp hours. If I were guessing, I would suppose the pre-amp in your Goodrich pedal would draw from 4 to 6 mili-amps. Let's say it draws 4 mili-amps. Divide 4 into 125, and you will get how many hours the battery in your pedal should last if played constantly. Another thing about batteries. Most people assume they drop voltage slowly over their life. Actually they hold their rated voltage for most of their life. Then suddenly at the end, there is a big drop in voltage. Back when the above light beam pedals were made, you didn't see a lot of wall transformers. With the advent of all kinds of powered telephones, answering systems, and computers, and other devices, wall warts are common place. In the old days a 120 volt transformer was put inside the device.

John Fabian · From: Mesquite, Texas USA * R.I.P.

Actually, I seem to remember that the transformer on my old Goodrich light beam pedal was in a small metal box on the ac cord between the plug and the pedal. Not in the pedal itself.

John Fabian

[This message was edited by John Fabian on 21 February 2001 at 03:48 AM.]

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Keith,
I used to have one of those older 120v
Goodrich lightbeam pedals. Mine actually had
an electric metal 2-outlet box in-line between the pedal and the plug. It came in handy.
But I noticed a harsher and less smooth
tone with this pedal. There was definitely some kind of tone change between the lightbeam and a regular pot pedal. After a while I went back to the pot pedal. Just liked the better tone quality.

chipsahoy

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

If the transformer was outside the pedal, that is GOOD! Maybe the one I saw was altered, because the transformer was inside the pedal.
I have a old Edwards and Morley light beam pedal at my shop, and they both have the transformer inside. Here is food for thought;I was recently looking through one of the mass mailed music supply catalogs. They had a pot volume pedal who's retail price was $24.95. That's the whole pedal "new" for $24.95. That might be a option for those on limited budgets who are buying a student guitar and need a foot pedal.

[This message was edited by Keith Hilton on 21 February 2001 at 09:30 AM.]

Bob Brocius · From: Lake Katrine, NY USA Don't blink, you'll miss it.!

Years ago, I had an Edwards Lightbeam. The transformer was inside. What I found was that the type 57 lightbulbs in the pedal were powered by AC voltage. As I backed off the volume, more light would fall on the photocells, volume would go down, but 60 cycle hum would go up. Once I got fed up with this, I removed the transformer and used it along with some RadioShack parts to make an External Regulated Power Supply. With the bulbs being powered with DC voltage, hum went away.

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Bobby Brocius, ZumSteel D-10, 8x8, Blue, BL910 PUs

Danny Hullihen · From: Harrison, Michigan

Keith, I'm a little confused about the 120 volt/20 amp circuit you mentioned.

Most house wiring circuits are 120V 15amp, fed with 14/2 copper wire to the recepticle. There are 120V 20amp G.F.C.I. circuits in some homes, (12/2) but those are usually reserved for kitchen appliances such as refridgerators or micro wave ovens, which draw higher currents, or in the case of single phase motorized devices such as an air compressor for example.

In any case, I find it very hard to believe that there were any volume pedals made, (regardless of circa,) that would require a 20 amp circuit to operate it? Obviously I missed something here?

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Danny, maybe this will help. Were there pedals made with 120 volt transformers inside the pedal? Yes, and there still is. Morely pedals still puts the transformer inside the pedal. The qestion is this: "Which is safer, a transformer inside a pedal, or one that is outside the pedal?"
A transformer inside a pedal puts you closer to 120 volts if something were to happen. With the transformer outside the pedal you could only get 9 to 24 volts if something did go wrong. To explain further Danny, you can hold 24 volt wires in your hand and not feel it. If you touch 120 volt wires you will get a serious shock. I don't see what is so hard to understand about that?

Matt Farrow · From: Raleigh, NC, USA

I think what the actual concern is might be this:

Keith Hilton is stating that old Edwards Light-Beam pedals are connected directly to your house wiring, so assume that's 120VAC, 20A available current. These Edwards pedals don't have a separate ground wire, just the neutral side of the AC connected directly to the chassis. That can be dangerous, especially if the player is grounded and the receptacle is wired wrong (often the case.)

The question then becomes: how can my pedal draw 20 amps of 120VAC? It really can't unless there's an internal short in the pedal. A regular light beam pedal probably draws less than 1 amp, even with transformer losses. BUT, there's 20A available at the outlet. Ohm's law says that the current drawn by a circuit is equal to the voltage divided by the resistance of the load. The human body is a resistor, among other things, and the resistance value of a human finger or foot can be quite low depending on several factors. The less resistance your body has, the more current you'll draw. Therefore, isolating the circuit through a transformer is an important safety precaution. In the Edwards pedals, one leg of the AC line is connected to the chassis of the pedal, so no isolation is available. The same logic says that you should remove the "death cap" in your vintage amplifier and install a 3-wire cord. The "death cap" connects the chassis to the AC line through a high-voltage capacitor. Also not safe. I work with test equipment that is capable of generating 7kVAC, which is enough to burn off your finger if you're wearing a ring on it...

So Keith is right. The Edwards pedals can be made quite safe fairly easily, but you'll never get them to sound very good! I always put a little MOSFET buffer preamp in my pot pedals, with a 5M input impedance and a 10K output impedance. Works for me.

Matt Farrow
Pharaoh Amplifiers

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Matt Farrow
Marlen 9-string 6+2
Kustom K150

http://surf.to/pharaohamps

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I've been told that the main reason that manufacturers use "wall warts" is to get away from UL testing. If the tranformer is not inside the unit, you don't need to to be "UL Approved" to market it in the US. Only the box that actually houses the transformer needs to be UL Approved.

I've built hundreds of guitar amplifiers, and I maintain that there is nothing inherently unsafe about putting the transformer inside the unit. If you have a good design, good wiring technique and a proper fuse, everything will work fine.

There is no danger of getting shocked by the full amperage of the line in a properly constructed piece of electronic gear. UL approves thousands of devices for consumer use. We all use many UL approved devices in our homes, and shocks from them are rare indeed. When was the last time you got juiced by your boombox, refridgerator or vacuum cleaner?

Keith asks, "Which is safer, a transformer inside a pedal, or one that is outside the pedal?" I say that it depends on the construction of the pedal. There's nothing about having a transformer inside a volume pedal that makes the pedal inherently unsafe. Bad design is what makes equipment unsafe.

I also believe that a transformer designed into the pedal is less likely to fail than a cheap external wall wart transformer. You won't misplace it or accidentally hook up the wrong one. To me, a wall wart is a gig disaster waiting to happen.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (E9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Danny Hullihen · From: Harrison, Michigan

"Quote" you can hold 24 volt wires in your hand and not feel it. If you touch 120 volt wires you will get a serious shock.

Keith, on the contrary, you could touch a 120 volt wire all day long and not get shocked as long as you're not grounded, and/or do not touch the neutral or ground wire.

I have to agree with Bob on this one, wall warts are disasters waiting to happen. They are easily damaged, and are another trip hazard in some instances.

Please don't misunderstand, Keith, this is not to imply that what you're doing with your pedals isn't any good, it's just that there are inherant problems with wall wart powered devices, as well as inconvenience.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

This has wandered away from the original question of comparing volume pedal brands.

However, Keith and I and others have discussed the internal voltage before. Obviously Keith is a lot more comfortable with an external power device - disregarding the UL approval process - than he would be with a built in power supply. Since it's his design he can do what he wants with the power supply design. I too think it's a hassle to have another wall wart to be concerned about but with the success of the Hilton pedal this obviously is not an issue.

If a device is properly designed, gone through the UL approval process and used as designed it should be as safe as any AC operated device on the market.

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