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My guitar player recently came across an old Boss CE-2 from the late 70's, but there was no power supply with it. As I understand it, pedals from back then required different power supplies than what is standard today. Anyone know where I can track one down?

ACA 9v adapter or 12v DC from what I understand. I have a Boss CE2. I use the adapter that came with my BBE Tremor. Its the only adapter I could find that works...but I'm sure you can buy one or buy an adapter tip for a typical boss style adapter.

And that would work even if the pedal is from the late 70's?

I think the pedal is messed-up and can no longer be powered by batteries :/

Someone might be able to help you in the Shark Tank?

my boss ce2 is from 1981. can't be too far off from yours. check this website out: http://www.bossarea.com/other/aca.asp

it says the old boss pedals were designed to run off of a 12v adapter or a 9v battery. there is a resister/diode pair between the minus input of the power jack and the ground that reduces the voltage coming from the power supply from 12v to 9v. try using a 12v adapter..it should work. i don't know how handy you are..but there's also a mod you can do to remove the resister/diode pair that is cutting the voltage so you can just run the pedal off a 9v adapter. http://stinkfoot.se/archives/1019

also the voodoo labs power supplies that have 12v outputs on them...they're there for the old boss pedals from what i understand. so if you use an isolated power supply with a 12v output, that should work, too.

Thanks everyone!

ACA: 12v
PSA: 9V

There should be a sticker near the power jack that says either ACA or PSA. If not, rest assured that your pedal requires ACA (because of era, all the early ones do) to operate at intended spec. It will function if fed 9v, but the indicator light will be dim and the sound most likely meh. Who knows, you may like it.

As mentioned, there's a resistor that reduces the 12v to 9v, so feeding an "ACA" pedal the standard 9v via psu only provides about 6v, unless you're using a daisy chain which bypasses the resistor.

Just cut out the zener diode and use a standard 9V supply... it's fairly pointless.

How do I identify the correct diode to cut out?

Ah, in some units it was wired across the back of the circuit board I believe.

Anyway, open the pedal up and on the board, by the top where all the wires are soldered in, there should be a large-ish black diode with a grey stripe, either jumper it or cut it.