My pedal board has a regulated 9V power supply with several adapter plugs connected to it for my pedals. While I was doing some rearranging, one of these adapter plugs was unplugged and the + barrel accidentally touched ground, which caused a quick short. Of course this occurred with power being supplied to some of my pedals.
I'm not aware that this would cause any damage as is seemed like a simple short between the + and - of my power supply, but a short time later I discovered that the Neutron I built was no longer working. Upon closer analysis, I found the MAX1044 in there was no longer putting out a -9V. Could this sudden short have caused the MAX1044 to be damaged? If so, how could I avoid this happening again?
a simple short?
A simple short will cause a hefty transformer to smoke - all of a sudden youre sending current through a zero-ohm connection! The circuit will attempt to produce massive current. The MAX1044 can only supply 20mA I believe (check the datasheet), so unless you've installed some kind of rigorous current protection, there's a very real possibility it's fried....
You might want to replace more, though - the diodes, depending on the ones you used. The caps will have survived. Oh sorry - no diodes in the voltage inverter. Um. A Neutron working with positive ground?
Shorting the input to a power supply can (depending on the chips & design) result in current being able to flow "backwards" thru the unit with fatal results. It is a different matter if you just stop connecting the supply. If that is what happened here, then a polarity diode at the input (in series with the input voltage) should help, provided you can stand the 0.6V or so drop in voltage.