Mission is happy to announce the arrival of the 529 power converter. Power your effects pedals from a USB charger, rechargeable battery, even a computer USB port.
9V DC from a disposable PP3 (6LR61) battery or an external 9V power supply has been the de facto standard for guitar effects pedals pretty much since they were first invented. In the meantime, the rest of the world has moved on, and most of our other portable devices these days are powered via USB. Since USB is so popular and pervasive, there is a huge choice of different wall chargers, batteries, and other USB power ports, with a wide range of features and price points. To some extent it would just be easier if we could power effects pedals from USB.
That was the thinking behind the Mission 529. The 529 takes a 5 Volt USB input, and converts it to 9V pedal power ports, 5 Volt to 9 Volt, 5 – 2 – 9, Geddit? There’s 4 isolated 150mA outputs for powering conventional effects pedals, plus a 500mA high power output for those devices with higher current requirements. The USB input can be almost any type of USB power device. A USB wall charger such as you use with your phone or tablet will work fine, and there is one included with the 529.
The kicker though, is that you can also use a USB rechargeable battery pack. Almost any off the shelf USB battery pack will work. Smaller 1A packs will be enough for a few pedals. 2.1A packs will allow you to use more plus those with higher current demands such as some digital pedals. If you need more than the 5 outputs, you can chain two 529 units together and use them with a 2.1A USB power source to power up to 10 pedals.
Battery life depends on the capacity of the battery you are using, and the power usage of your particular pedals. As a guide the optional 10,000mA/h battery we provide with the 529 should comfortably power a typical five pedal rig for around 8 hours. If you are using just a few low power analog pedals, then 20 hours life should be easily possible. Since the 529 will work with almost any USB battery pack, you can choose one that meets your needs. If you travel a lot, you probably already have one for your phone which should work fine for powering your pedals too.
We know that small and light pedal boards such as the Pedaltrain Nano, are very popular for fly gigs, so we designed the 529 to fit under a Nano with no modifications required. The 529 is just 1″ tall so it easily fits underneath the Nano and other similar boards. The enclosure is a light weight anodized aluminum design that weighs in at 0.25lbs. Add a 0.5lbs Li-Polymer battery pack, and the entire power solution is just 0.75 lbs.
The 529 can be powered from other USB sources too. Connecting to a desktop or laptop computer is helpful if you are recording or rehearsing on the road. You could also connect to USB ports on a digital audio workstation when in the studio. We’ve found it very helpful to have a few 529’s around the lab to quickly power up pedals for testing and servicing, it’s small size means it easily fits into a gig bag or toolkit. The available power on a computer USB port will depend on the computer. You’ll need to check the specifications for the particular machine you are using. 500mA is common, which is less than from most batteries or wall chargers, but more than enough to power 3 or 4 typical analog pedals.
We cover connecting up the 529 to various power sources in the video below. If you feel like checking out the 529 in more detail, there’s also a bunch of additional videos on James youtube channel
And finally, here are a few more links for more in depth information:
Product Page
Technical Page
Printable User Guide
where is the guitar rig contest?
The Guitar Rig contest ended back in March. However, we will shortly be announcing a new contest to win a Pedaltrain pedal board loaded with a Mission 529 and pedals from Eventide, Earthquaker, and Pigtronix. Subscribe to our blog, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates.
I got an email with this in the subject line:
“Guitar Rig Giveaway from Mission Engineering for 11/01/2017”
Not disappointed in the product, but it’s not unreasonable for Ron (above) to have expected the contest to be live. I did too.
Sorry about this. Our system sent out an email today with the title ‘posts from mission engineering for 11/01/2017. This goes out to those who have subscribed to our email news letter whenever new posts are published on our blog. It included our most recent headline article on the Mission 529. The email update also includes a digest of titles of the last 5 blog posts for those interested in catching up on anything they missed. Some of the past posts going back to earlier in the year reference contests which have since been completed.
I want to use 12v output
Will it be possible among new products?
The current product is 9V only but we are considering adding a 12V output to future versions.
Please can you make one with two 12v outputs? Or better still allow switching on the 9v outputs so between 12v 9v 19v etc.
Not on this one. Voltage boosting is not 100% efficient and uses more power the bigger the difference between voltages. With a Lithium battery, we are starting with 3.7 volts, and boosting this to 12V or 19V with a USB 3.0 interface limited to 12W isn’t practical. We are working on some products that are AC powered and/or use USB 3.1 power delivery that may be able to support higher voltages in the future.