Need external AC adapter: 5V 1.6A?

"El Bastardo"

Their cat: MP -3140 is close enough.

......... Phil

I bought the above adapter, and confirmed with the sales dude that it should be a drop-in replacement for my existing adapter, which I'd brought along to double check the voltage (5V) , current (1.6A) and polarity (+ tip).

I used it to fully recharge my device (the green LED was on, indicating this). But once I'd drawn down some of the battery, the device would no longer draw any power from the adapter. The "recharging" LED no longer displays, and when powered on with the adapter plugged in, the device's screen indicates that the internal battery is being used rather than the external charger.

Later at work I found another adapter (5V, 2.5A) and tried that, and this seemed to work: the green LED was displayed, indicating that the unit was recharging. However, once the device was fully charged, and I'd drawn down some the battery, I could not recharge it with either of the adapters.

I got a multimeter and tested both adapters, but could not get areading on either. I was told that since the adapters are switching, no load was being presented, and hence no reading on the multimeter. I don't know enough about electronics to say if this is correct.

I dunno what's going on here. Any thoughts?

-- Geoff

"El Bastardo"

Switching adaptors that I have seen operate with no load, a 12 volt one I just checked produced full voltage with only 80 volts AC input.

Loos like your unit is damaging the adaptors somehow - three in a row now.

........... Phil

Did the MP3 player ever recharge okay with the original adapter?

How the hell did you "short" out the original adapter? Most good designs should have some current limiting circuitry built in to prevent overloading the device and damaging it. Although it may be a cheap and nasty, in which case there is always a good possibility no such feature has been incorporated in the adapter.

Cheers, Alan

G'day,

Phil Allison wrote: > Loos like your unit is damaging the adaptors somehow - three in a row now.

Seems that way. I'll try again to verify the adapters are working.

-- Geoff

Yes -- for around a month. I should point out that it was a US adapter with an Aussie-to-US plug on it.

Dunno. I had it plugged in to the device (as I was loading files onto it), and noticed (after about two hours of use) that the green LED was not on. There was a strange odour in the room for a good while before that, that I didn't pay any heed to. Taking the adapter apart, I noticed that one part of it was burnt out (and hence causing the aforementioned odour). A mate at work far more knowledgeable than me called the burnt out part a "reverse current" thingamajig (or something like that).

-- Geoff

So was the US-Aussie converter just a plug changer, or did you actually convert 240V down to 110V? Sounds like you burnt out the charger, not shorted it. Whether you damaged the device is moot.

Ken

"Ken Taylor"

.......... Phil

The charger can accept 110V - 240V, so a simple US-Aussie converter was all that was required.

Apparently the burnt out bit was a zener diode, according to the local techie I showed the unit it to. Maybe there was a spike.

-- Geoff