Patch cables and power supplies

[PanicProne]

Thanks for all the replies guys! (Keep em coming!

And yes Jwar, that was helpful!
Considering how much stuff you seem to get/replace/flip/buy again/re-flip/trade back/flippetyflop etc, how big of a rig you seem to run (which is great I guess, if you ever tour you kinda have your own bed with you already, right?) and how much our experiences seem alike with some stuff, this made a lot of sense to me.

So far I think I might actually ditch the solder-free game permanently, as planned, go for EBS-cables and get myself an Ojai.
I'll probably end up thinking about it a lot more, but yeah, that's the path I'm looking at right now.

[echorec]

Are you in Europe? Have you looked into the Yankee PS-M1? It's less expensive than the Ojai (€121 compared to €188).

http://yankee.com.pl/ps-m1-power-supply/?lang=enswe

https://www.stratgear.com/index.php?id_ ... &id_lang=1

You may also look into the Friedman Power Grid 10, as it's less expensive than the Zuma with 10 ports, compared to 9. The snag is that it offers 350ma per slot, compared to the Zuma's 500ma. I have a Zuma, which I enjoy, but if the Yankee units were more common in the US, I might've picked up one of them instead.

[zoooombiex]

My cable experience FWIW

-solderless cables always eventually failed at the ground connection. just wiggled loose if you moved them around too much

-anything with a molded plastic cover around the jack connection eventually gave out at the plastic joint

-most purchased cables seem to suffer from poor strain relief, such that the cable terminations eventually tore and broke the exposed metal wire

I started making my own cables a long time ago and have yet to have one fail. But it's time consuming, and not any cheaper than buying cables. I made a thread a long time ago somewhere on TGP about my overbuilt cable process - it basically just involves lots of hot glue and heat shrink to completely immobilize the interior of the jack and move all the strain relief outside the jack itself. I've streamlined it a little since then (and gotten better at it) but it still works. If I do come across a third party cable (sometimes come with pedals) I'll still open them and pump them full of hot glue and try to add strain relief if the design allows. IMO it really seems to help their longevity.

Another thing that helps with cable issues is to occasionally pulling out all plugs, spray some contact cleaner on them, and then push them in and out of the jack a few times (or spin them in the jack) to clean the contacts. That can reduce a lot of the crackly noise you can get when pedals get jostled. They also make little fiberglass scratch pens that you can use to clean contacts.

For power supplies, I've always stuck with Voodoo Labs (currently prefer the 4x4 since so many pedals now need > 100ma). But haven't tried the others to comment.

[comesect2.0]

any of you use a surge protector..& when its time to power down, after having your pedals on for a week, just flip the switch on the surge protector.....any of you do that....?

[rfurtkamp]

I've had pedals on for literally years at a time.

Never an issue. I..unplug them.

In Ye Olden Days, I never turned the Space Echo off unless it was going from gig to practice space and back, etc. I rarely put the amps on standby unless it was warming up after coming in from winter conditions, and they stayed on.