Your advice at the end - I didn’t read it. My house has burnt down - thx 😂

So if a laptop power adapter/supply has the warning, "For use with information technology equipment only", I can just ignore that warning and use it to power anything as long as voltage matches, amps, and polarity are satisfied? Ex. using it to power any and all LED monitors, that certainly will not fall under the "information technology equipment" umbrella, and many other examples.

​@deependz3231 I am not en electrical either. However, I can tell you that if the power supply doesn't change voltage like some usb-c charger then you should be fine as long as the ampere is enough for your device.

​@@deependz3231always read the back pf the device you want to power. They have stickers or its engraved into the plastic, where the wire is coming out from. Same on all the adapters. The big block end that plugs into the wall usually has a sticker with all the input and output that that adapter provides. Input power is usually 110/120 volts and the output is whatever volts and amps it says. If the information is missing, you take a chance at messing up the thing you want to power.

Thats sad

Hope youre okay

Is that a metric or imperial Ton?

It’s funny, I always debate on how far down the rabbit hole to go. I should pin a comment in case someone is less kind in their response. (The capacitor thing is interesting, and something I haven’t run into. But thanks for the info!)

@@shawnp0wersthe internal circuitry of these power adaptors have changed over time - Capacitors deteriorate over time & years in use - so adaptors will go “pop” eventually - & its the capacitors which is more than likely the first failure. It’s a huge rabbit hole & yes you should suffer & go down them all! 😂 Start with KZfaq’s re fixing switch mode power supplies / replacing capacitors. You’ll love it!

​@messageobliquespe100 Yes. Capacitors seems to be the first point of failure for alot of power supply. Along with fuses maybe

Well *I* find value in them. My wife may not agree... LOL (Generally those with a larger amperage are more useful, but I keep them all, hehehehe)

Ummmm…. Prob not enough value to make you a big hit with the girls imho! 😂 but you might make a local nerds day whose needs one in an emergency!

It's *probably* fine. Most power adapters are just transformers, which means they take the wall current and change to the lower voltage with the different sized coils of wire. Then they rectify the AC current into DC. Since wall voltage varies pretty drastically (anywhere from 105ish to 125ish volts), that means actual measured voltage at the barrel connector is usually just a decreased factor of the wall current. (12v is easy to explain, as the transformer is generally a 1 to 10 winding ratio, so 120v wall current means 12v as it's reduced by a factor of 10) The 6v connector is probably rated at 6v based on a 1 to 20 winding ratio, giving 6v with a 120v wall current. But since it varies up and down, there's usually wiggle room. It's possible a really fancy power adapter could have circuitry to supply exactly 5.3v, but that's expensive, and especially with battery charging, there's usually wiggle room. (batteries are charged at a slightly higher voltage than they provide, that's how we "push" the energy into them) With less than a volt of discrepancy, I'd probably use the 6v power supply. That said, "5.3v" is an oddly specific voltage, so maybe the original power supply was a weirdly expensive model with fancy circuitry. If you have a multi-meter, you could always check what the actual voltage coming out of the barrel connector is. And if it's a particularly expensive camera, maybe buy a replacement original. That was a long-winded way to shrug... sorry. :)

Perfect answer. The book for the camera actually said 5.2 v 1.0A the charger reads 6v 1.3 A. I tested charger and got 6.3V. Still okay? It seemed to work okay it charged battery fine. Bottom of camera a little warm but don’t know if that is normal when charging.

Correct. A device will take what it needs, amp-wise.

Good tip to measure the output voltage of these devices before putting into use - designs have changed over the years & it’s more than likely that people squirrel these dead supplies as they might have stopped working / or not performed after a period of time / been stored in damp places - so if you plug into the device & into the AC socket - it could go pop - & with your device connected with it! This another rabbit hole to go down!

Yes, a benchtop power supply.

They’re soooo inconsistent, it’s frustrating. :/

That 3% variance in voltage will likely make no difference at all. The 200mA will probably mean the transformer will get hotter than is ideal, but it would probably charge it up. I'll add all the disclaimers that it's not ideal, it could overheat the transformer, in a closed area it could potentially start a fire, etc, etc. All that said, I would personally probably try it in a pinch. Not long term though. I'd order something cheap like this and if the barrel didn't fit, I'd splice in the one that does fit, being careful of polarity: amzn.to/3GfiM0S

If original power supply is good, I would try to fix the cable at first.

Enjoy! slpower.com/data/collateral/PW174KB_DS.pdf

Yes, changing to thicker wires would certainly help. But if you still get too much loss, what people often do is get a power supply with slightly higher voltage. Be sure to test the voltage at the end of the wire either way. Raspberry pi power supplies are often over-voltes to 5.1 or 5.2 volts to make sure the pi gets the full 5v.

@@shawnp0wers Thank you for taking the time to reply, very much appreciated!!! ~Don

So... I can give you a wishy-washy "maybe", but also probably not. The frustrating part is, there's often a variance with transformers due to several reasons. Since they step down from household main voltage, they have to assume (in the US) that incoming voltage could be anywhere from around 105V up to 125V. If you measure your receptacles, you'll probably find your house sits somewhere in that range. (usually between 110 and 120, but I've seen 108V and 122V pretty frequently) So if a device steps down the voltage by 10 (a 12V power supply makes the math really easy here), if the voltage is 120V at the wall, it will be 12V at the other side. But if the voltage is actually 108V, when stepped down it will be like 10.8V, which might not be enough to power the device. PLUS, there is voltage loss on the wire, which has worse losses the lower the voltage. So if 10.8V is coming out of the transformer, after it travels 8 feet down the wires, it might only be 10V, which is a significant drop in what the device is expecting. It is certainly possible to add circuitry in order to make sure the correct voltage is coming out of the transformer, but more circuitry means more expense. So very often, devices will operate within a voltage "range", and transformers will try to "hit the middle" of that range. I realize that was a lot of un-asked-for explanation, but yeah. 15.7V is pretty high for a 12V rated transformer, but it's possible it's just working as designed. And most 12V devices would probably be fine with that voltage, but admittedly it's getting a bit higher than I'd be comfortable with.

@@shawnp0wers is there a way to refurbish the adapter? It's a Microsoft adapter from 1997 so it's not the easiest to find.

@@luter82 Honestly, it might be working perfectly fine. If you have another, or know someone with one similar -- you could test it to see how close it is. If someone else measures, have them check their mains voltage too, and you could compare the ratio of your mains vs 15.7, and their mains vs their transformer. Truly, that extra voltage might have been by design to make sure it delivers at least a certain voltage.

LOL -- ok, I was logged in with one of my other channels. But the response was from me, and holds true. (lol, I can only imagine you're like, "WTF is a birdfeeder channel replying for?!?")

@@nerdlingbirdtopia I have just received an answer from a guy online that says that his delivers 16.1v. Total nonesense. Why would you write 12v if then it's not. Just to confuse things?? 😂

Sadly, adding them together in series (which would add voltages) isn’t a good idea. The different amperage and gauge of wires would be unsafe. :(

Depends from voltage and power that these power supplies support. 20 LEDs in series most likely will require quite large voltage like in 30...120V range. Don't forget about current limiting too. You need not only a power supply, but also a LED driver circuit. That is why LED power supplies are special animals - they have two actual circuits inside.

I solved the problem. All the adaptors input is 120v but the output is different for every one. The output doesn't really matter. I calculated the total voltage/mA of 20 LED's and calculated the ohms required from 120v. This works fine. What I don't understand that even if the adaptor says 5 or 7 or 9v volts output and I am getting 120volts from the adaptors.@@KrotowX

​@@Joh750 Seems your adapters are transformerless power supplies. Where voltage drop till desired voltage happen on capacitor or resistor and capacitor in parallel circuit. Works fine for light loads like LED strips. Require proper insulation because circuit have mains voltage present (thus 120V appear as you observed).

Oh dear! Well, you should exercise a bit of caution tbh - yep, you can power items with higher rated supplies ie current as per this video BUT…..if the device connected ‘shorts’ or develops a fault - & it’s own protection circuitry doesn’t ‘react’ in time or circuitry not ‘clever’ then it’ll sink all that additional current - before it hopefully blows the fuses in itself - or in the power supply. You’ll be left with burnt traces & wonder why oh why didn’t I use the one it was rated for. It’s another rabbit hole!!

@@messageobliquespe100 Laptop power supplies are still relatively "safe". What you definitely must not use in newer PCs - a decade old ATX power supplies with group rail. Where all DC outputs are connected to same transformer output/rectifier. In systems with high load in +12V rail (think GPU or something else) PSU ramp up power to maintain stable 12V that rise voltage in other DC outputs at the same time. And suddenly you have above 4V and above 7V instead of 3.3V and 5V. I guess you already understood where it is going.

😂 I wondered what kind of massager it was 😂 strange it was the right one for the job that was squirrelled away in the hordes of adapters too! His n hers massagers 😂

Prob saw the adapter squirrelled away where it shouldn’t have been & nicked it! “Yes dear - I’m sure I have one to suit”….. thereby allowing to keep the hordes of adapters…..with the words….”you see… always come in useful…”

That's... complicated. :) A charger generally does a few things. It has a voltage slightly higher than the battery provides (battery chemistries are different, so the exact voltage delta varies by battery), and they "listen" to the voltage of the battery itself, so when it reaches a certain voltage, it stops feeding it power. Once the "fully charged" state (again, varies based on the battery and the battery chemistry) is achieved, most battery charges will keep a "float charge" going, giving the battery just enough energy so that it stays topped off, but isn't being actively charged at the higher voltage/amperage used for active charging. So technically yes, you can charge a battery with an adapter providing a voltage higher than the battery's current charge, as the energy will flow from the place of higher voltage to the one of lower voltage. The amperage the adapter can provide determines how "fast" that charge will be sent. BUT (and it's a big but), an actual charger has circuitry to make sure the battery isn't overcharged. And especially with lithium-based battery chemistries, that's a very, very important feature, as lithium batteries which are overcharged tend to get explodey. Hopefully that makes sense...

Can I use 5 Volt and 2 Ampere instead of 6 Volt and 0,3 Ampere ?

Adapters for the tips?

​@@Darko1226 yes, they do sell adapters for (barrel tip plugs). They go in size by millimeter.