TBA's Replacement Power Supply for Atari XL/XE?

[+Larry]

I used a small switching PS to power my Black Box for quite a few years, but when it recently failed, it took out the BB with it.  Supposedly, these small switching supplies are safer than older supplies (?), but evidently it depends on which switcher you have.  Is anything known about the supply used by TBA for its XL/XE replacement PS?  Or is there a suggested small switcher that is unlikely to cause the kind of failure that I experienced?

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 hours ago, Larry said:

I used a small switching PS to power my Black Box for quite a few years, but when it recently failed, it took out the BB with it.  Supposedly, these small switching supplies are safer than older supplies (?), but evidently it depends on which switcher you have.  Is anything known about the supply used by TBA for its XL/XE replacement PS?  Or is there a suggested small switcher that is unlikely to cause the kind of failure that I experienced?

It's essentially a 5V, 2A USB power supply with the DIN-style power connector on the end.  I have one, and it works fine.  As for who manufactures it or the way it'll behave in a failure, I have no idea.  The latter is hard to predict without it failing, and that's something I'd prefer to not experience if at all possible 

 

Having said that, my other power supplies are (specifically) Raspberry Pi 5V, 2.5A units fed via 8bitclassics' XL/XE USB Power Cable and Electop USB C to A adapters.  This gives he best flexibility in terms of how much cable length is available, and the RasPi supplies are robust.  It also leaves the power supply able to act as a regular USB PSU if needed.

[TZJB]

5 hours ago, Larry said:

I used a small switching PS to power my Black Box for quite a few years, but when it recently failed, it took out the BB with it.  Supposedly, these small switching supplies are safer than older supplies (?), but evidently it depends on which switcher you have.  Is anything known about the supply used by TBA for its XL/XE replacement PS?  Or is there a suggested small switcher that is unlikely to cause the kind of failure that I experienced?

 

 

Sorry to hear of the demise of your Black Box. I use a traditional PSU for mine which supplies + 12V ,- 12V and +5V.  It was a second hand PSU from an old modem at the time and still works. The best way to protect from over-voltage damage to equipment is to place a zener diode across the supply, especially the 5V supply. I use 5.6V 1A zeners across the 5V power inputs which will only conduct when the voltage is exceeded, hopefully saving the equipment by blowing a fuse in the PSU. Most modern switch mode PSU have overvoltage protection built in. A replacement from a well know manufacturer such as Meanwell is recommended. A Meanwell PT45B might work for you. But then you will need some replacement chips for the Black Box too!

 

PT-45-SPEC.PDF