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Quick power supply question


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Ya not worth risking. I use this for my top loader and toaster nes and it works great. It says out of stock right now in sotre and online but I got it in store when it was available many years ago.

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/PowerLine-1300-mah-Universal-AC-Adapter-w-USB-Power-Port/16778839

That's pretty cool. You'd think radio shack would have things like that, but their stock supply is so useless I find more connectors now at Target haha.

 

I have everything hooked up now for the first time. It's been a long ride, but my setup is finally done.

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In theory, there is no risks doing that, as consoles (at least, the NES and SNES) doesn't draw current when powered off. Now, there is a slight risk that you accidentaly fire up both consoles at once.

But the risk there is for the power supply.

If it's a heavy brick, if will overload, getting hotter, and the power supplied to the consoles will drop until the PSU melt of one of the console cut from having not enough power (which does NOT damage the consoles). It's still not a desirable thing to happen.

If it's a stitching power supply, and if it's made with modern safety standards (not Shitnese stuff - note that many Chinese made-and-branded producsts does respect European and American standard of safety today) it will simplyy lock itself until you unplug it and plug it back without the excess load.

If there is no safety, there is a higher risk of it overheating, and since switching power supplies are more compact and carry hight voltage inside them, this might lead to disasters... still, for the PSU.

 

In none of those scenarios, the consoels are at risks, except if when overheating/failing, the PSU send high voltage (in excess of 20 Volts) in the consoles, there is a high risk of the console power board or the whole board to fail.

But in most cases, it will jsut not work, and don't have catastrophic results.

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Yep, regardless.

 

Plus switching power supplies are safer, more reliable and deliver a better voltage to the console.

 

If you know the way the console filter the power, you can also lower the input voltage.

For example, the LM7805 chip in an Atari 2600 need a minimum of 7.3 volts to work.

Tho, because the original Atari 2600 brick in unregulated, it mean that depending on the maximum power it was made to deliver, and the power consumption of the 2600 (if a Supercharger is attached to it, for example... it's not common and not a huge power draw, but it's a thing that the engineers always consider) the voltage varies wildly : when there is no load on the power supply, a typical Atari 2600 9V 500 Ma delivers up to 14 Volts; this voltage drop when you power the console on.

 

But it still mean that the regulator chip have to deal with a flash of "high" current when powering the system (it's usually why those chips fail at the power -up and not during use, same things for incandescent lightbulbs that almost universally die when you switch them on) that varies slightly when in use later.

 

A regulated 7.5 volts power supply for an Atari 2600 will deliver a much better and constant 7.5 volts to the system, and will reduce the stress on the LM 7805 chip (even if it's a very common part and that replacing it on an Atari 2600 is easy even for beginners, it's readily acessible and away from other components (on the not JR models at least)).

 

The SNES and SNES certainly use more complex designs, but for example, the Sharp Twin famicom, despite housing a standard Famicom and a standard Family Disk System under a large shell, only need a 7.5V power supply rather than the 9V we see on the NES.

It probably mean that NES and SNES can be powered with a 7.5Volts power supply, given that you choose a power supply that deliver the same amount of power at least.

Or it mean that Sharp designed a more efficient power supply board than Nintendo :)

Edited by CatPix
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