Wallwart substitution

NO

For a coffee warmer, yes. For anything else, maybe. There's just not enough information to reverse-engineer the situation, and the 'ratings' of those adapters are NOT much of a guide. 'Safely' might involve lots of things beside the current and voltage ratings. 'Effectively' is as important as 'Safely', after all.

As others have said, we need more information on the device you wish to power. If it is to charge batteries in it, most likely the 12v will not work but there are too many if's with what you have mentioned.

12VAC probably won't work.

It might be useful to know what device you're trying to power because you might need to match the connector. My crystal ball just came back from the calibration lab, so I'll guess(tm) that it's one of the early Efficient DSL modems, possibly a Speedstream 5260, which I vaguely recall was one of few that used a 16VAC 1.1A adapter. I probably have one buried in the wall part pile, but I'm not in the office right now and can't check:

Also, you mumbled something about adapter "burn out". Power supplies are required to have a thermal fuse inside to prevent any overheating from burning down your house. When the fuse opens, it means that either the power supply became too hot, or the fuse was defective. I suspect the former. There might be a reason that it's getting hot, so I would check your unspecified equipment and power supply for bulging caps, burned PCB, or obvious signs of overheating.

Incidentally, if it is a Speedstream 5260, it might be worth saving because of the useful diagnostics it has in firmware.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

on me I don't have an exact replacement to the 16VAC 1.1.amp. Could I safe ly use

The adapter a ( DV-1611A powers a frequency generator ( F125 ). Somehow af ter trying a homemade extension I made for this adapter with the 2.5 mm con nectors when I turned on the FG next it showed dead. Further testing showed no power from the adapter. When I cracked open the wallwart hoping to fin d a replaceable part it had an odor to it and I see no parts. It appears to be wired straight from wall jack to the connections with nothing else and then to transformer. Unless there is a component under the yellow tape then there is nothing. A trip to the thrift store did not yield an exact match. Is there a replaceable component hiding somewhere? BTW ditched the extensi on for now and went with regular extension cord.

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There is something rather important under the yellow (or red) tape. This is a disassembled wall wart that had a defective thermal fuse. Replacing the fuse fixed it.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Safely? Proably. Effectively, perhaps not.

If your load can take that wide a voltage range, it might work. But 12 VAC might be a bit low. Try it. Nothing should be damaged by undervoltage. [snip]

The yellow tape might cover a fuse, polyfuse or some other overload protection. But its not worth replacing. These things open for a reason and that is often when the cheapo transformer craps out.

And put some line wraps in your text. Your post wandered so far over to the right I thought you were one of our regular politically conservative posters.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------ 
I think you left the stove on.

Safely, yes - but the powered equipment probably will not work.

No.

would probably work okay. It's 1.1A.

If the Thermal-fuse burned out ( its not defective, it did its job ), would you think it will just burnout another thermal-fuse ?

You did replace it with another thermal-fuse of the same rating, right ?

hamilton

The wall wart in the photo was from a PC amplified speaker system. I don't know exactly what caused it to open, but it was probably NOT overheating as it doesn't really get that hot. My assumption was that it was a defective thermal fuse. If the power supply had actually overheated to the point where the thermal fuse had done its job, it would have been VERY hot and obvious with a case temperature of about

100C. ABS plastics melt at around this temperature.

Same temperature and maximum current rating. However, I didn't use a new thermal fuse as that would require an expedition to the local parts store. Instead, I tore apart a similar wall wart from my collection, removed the tape, and extracted a working thermal fuse which conveniently had identical ratings (220vac, 1A, 115C). No problems for about 3 months so far.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Right. Always replace the fuse once, then troubleshoot if that one blows.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

I think the troubleshooting is over.

Twice is enough !

Why second guess a fuse ?

hamilton

Because fuses are dumb bits of metal, maybe?

A properly-sized fuse is constantly seeing some major fraction of its maximum current, and so experiences thermal fatigue. Fuses are cheap, and time isn't, so swapping in a new fuse before doing other troubleshooting is the right answer most of the time.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

90% of the rest of blown fuses are caused by some intermittent issue that can't immediately, or perhaps ever, be found.

They generally have extremely non-linear Tc's though, so a "major fraction" generates much less heat than you'd expect with a more linear Tc.

Clifford Heath