dirty DC power input

its more than likely its a either a broken joint on the PCB or cable

Howdy! No need to apologize for asking a question!. The most likely suspects for your intermittent power with that AC-DC adapter are that you may have an adapter plug (if coaxial) with a center female that's too large OR that the coaxial type power jack (I'm assuming that's what you have) has a poor "switched" contact inside it which is also very common. Does this unit have provision for internal batteries? As to your second request regarding the use of a power cube rated apparently at the same voltage but higher current, the answer is "maybe". The reason here is that many (most) of these adapters are unregulated and are nominally rated for their voltage AT the rated current - so using it on a light load will often result in a significantly higher voltage (measure it to be sure under load.....using a subsitute resistance instead of your valued load is the best way to get a feeling for whether it'll be acceptable).

Gord

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

Hi, thanks for the suggestions... I somehow doubt there's a connection broken as I can't see it ever being able to break in the first place i.e. the unit was never opened as far as I know. The too large center female maybe the problem (and I am using a universal, rather than device specific power supply), but looking at the jack, it is quite dirty, so I wonder is there a way to clean it up easily? and if so, would that help anything?

The device DOES use batteries, but these are also not working at the moment. I cleaned up the blue gunk from the springs, but the negative (-) contacts are brown and dirty as well, so I guess there's no connection being made... I tried using an eraser to clean them, but to no avail. I don't know how else to clean these contacts. Any other suggestions?

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I don`t think you have a dirty plugin jack. I beleave it may have some bad solder connections where it is attached to the main powersupply board or you may have a faulty 9 volt adaptor.

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Doesn`t matter if the unit was open up before or not. These solder connections can come loose just by plugging the adaptor in and out. This is a very common problem for these units that has an addaptor. Either it has bad solder which I tink it does or the whole jack is bad and needs to be replaced completely. But I would suggest to have it opened up even tho this will be the first time the unit has everbeen opened up and have those solder connections checked.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.... I will definitely have a look at the soldering. I am also ordering a unit specific power supply which is cheap enough to at least help rule out using the wrong sized connector.

most likely a broken wire in the plug on the adapter or a inside you have a solder joint connection problme! most likely needs to be resoldered.