It's overkill, but it's hard to argue against it when it sells in the US for $20 or less with shipping. A new 12V/10A power supply at that price will almost certainly be chinese with a bunch of fake safety certifications.
Yes. But more amps = better (generally)
I picked up this one on Ebay.
It does matter. 12v isn’t optional. 3-10amps is optional.
Doesn’t seem like this thread is getting anywhere either. Numbers just being tossed all around with nothing concrete to go with. I was going to hit the thrift stores today which have tons of containers full of old ac adapters to pick through but still don’t know what voltage and amps to look for. It appears no one really knows and its a guessing game.
What don't you get? HKJ explained it nicely in his review. Don't blame others because you don't understand.
When did I do anything but speak the truth and blame anybody? Have you read this thread. Numbers are being tossed all around with nothing to go with. Yes, I read the review and no I didn’t see the answer to the op’s question here. I haven’t read the review thread in a while perhaps it was updated. But I don’t plan on reading a 20+ page thread to find the answer, I will just roll with it as is and only charge one battery at a time as I remember the review saying that was accurate. Thanks for your help leaftye.
Dazed1- If you ever positively figure this out. Please update your first post with the correct charger to make this thread very helpful for others that are looking for one. Thanks.
People are looking for a simple, reproducable, economical, recommendation. 12V would seem to be a must have, but someone has suggested a 13.8v supply, is that a reasonable choice? I don’t know the answer for certain, but I’d avoid it to play it safe. Others have asserted that most power bricks are 12v, which isn’t really true, particularly for higher power equipment, like laptops, which are typically 19V.
HJK suggested >=10A, but people are trying less, others more. Not everyone understands that a higher current supply should be fine.
The consensus that keeps getting thrown out is to get an XBox power supply and mod it with a proper barrel plug. Simple, right? Nope!
Which XBox? The obvious answer when someone doesn’t specify XBox 360, or XBox One is the original XBox, but that is probably the wrong answer, since the original XBox had an internal PSU.
So, next guess is the XBox 360. That’s a better guess, except that there were multiple generations of the hardware, with power draws from 204W on down to 120W. Even better, they actually deliver both 12V and 5V, so you can’t expect the full power output to be available on 12V. XBoxOne PSUs might be a viable option too, looks like they have a 12V line that can deliver 17A. Be careful though, they aren’t universal AC voltage supplies. Shouldn’t be a problem if you are buying a used one from your region, could be a problem if you buy internationally.
And then there is the fact that not everyone feels confident modding a power connector, or has the tools to do it (yet:)
Not quite as simple as it seems, is it?
It's really VERY simple. I'll try to get a mod thread up this weekend.
As has been said.
Voltage, should be the same. I dont know what that voltage is as I dont own one of the chargers but it appears to be 12v.
Amps, well the 3 amp PSU that comes with the charger officially, does the job. But not well in all aspects and here in lies the issue. It charges batteries just fine though so anywhere above 3 amps is going to improve the issues that exist (all other quality considerations being the same). HKJ has stated there are 10 amp spikes, so 10 amps is the number many will like to deliver. So what we have is a range to work with from 3 to 10 amps. But IMO, 8 amps will do the same if that helps in choosing a unit. You may find 6 is enough. I say this because the 3 amps does the job, just not displaying accurate input numbers due to the spikes. Those errors will be reduced with higher amp supplies. Worth noting though, that not all PSUs are created equally, so one at 6 amps may do the job perfectly fine, while another companies 7 amp unit might still fall short.
You then get many other alternatives for sources of PSU, such as a PC PSU and XBOX360 units too. As well as a heap more probably if given time. Many people on this forum are looking for what is lying around, what is readily available cheap or free etc, its kind of what they do. The two examples above, are likely to be readily available as they’re versions no longer in demand, but high in numbers in existence, ergo, dirt cheap for what they are.
Pick a unit based on quality and price point that youre happy with. Somewhere between say 5 and 10 amps @12v. Check the voltage requirement though against your supplied PSU, because I dont know that they are 12v.
But youre right, no one has gone to BG or FT and bought a number of PSUs to test it yet and have a link to a ready made unit. But at least one person, has linked to one in one of the couple of threads that were going about that charger. I recall the post, just not which thread it was in.
@ ejected filament
Thanks, that is very helpful. Just checked my stock ac adapter and it is……
Output: 12 volts / 3 amps
The issue with the Opus supplied Wallwart is that while the average current is about 2 amps under maximum load, unforunately that is somewhat misleading. What the charger does is to draw 10 amps with a short duty cycle. So that leaves two choices. You can either increase the size of the filter cap on the existing supply to be able to provide the 10 amps during that duty cycle (My thumbnail says a 100,000 mfd cap will do it). The other alternative is to use a supply that can provide the 10amps reliably during the short duty cycle. That often can be accomplished with a supply that is rated for less than 10 amps. The larger supplies generally have larger filter caps on the output side, and it is likely that any supply that can provide at least 6 amps will address the issue. Remember the peak demand is 10 amps, but the average under full load is only 2 amps. The supply voltage should be 12 volts. I haven’t look inside the charger to look at the electronics, but it generally isn’t a good idea to operate DC powered electronics at higher than spec voltage.
So basically any DC supply rated for 12 volts at 6 amps or more is likely to work just fine, and give an accurate measurement of the charging mAh. I would advise against using power supplies rated for 20 amps or more. Some supplies have problems staying in regulation if the load is less than about 10% of rated output.
When buying a power supply for use in North America, look for a CSA, ETL or UL logo on the supply, as well a the FCC logo. These are your assurance that the device has been designed and built with reasonable quality and can be expected to be safe. Basicaly almost any power supply sold in North America (as opposed to sold in China for use in North America) will meet this criteria (It’s a product liability issue).
The issue isn’t safety, damage to the batteries or the charger, the issue is the accuracy of the reported charge mAh. If you don’t care about that (and what counts is the discharge capacity anyway), the supplied AC adapter is just fine.
PC PSU is one of the cheapest ways to get pretty high amps. This is on my to-do list.
You can get 12; 5; 3 volts there. May be useful in various applications.
Even my 8 year old cheap-o PSU can handle 10 amps (@12v) easily.
Regarding the xbox psu… The one to get is the OG one - not the 360 one, correct? I can’t find any of those on the bay.
Original xbox have built-in PSU, so they must be talking about 360 PSU.
My ebay search terms are "xbox 203w power supply". I only consider Microsoft power supplies and not any of the aftermarket power supplies. Others might work though.
Yes, 360.
The 360 psu doesn’t use a standard output though?
So it would be fairly safe to hook into a PC power supply’s molex connector using the yellow and a black? Would there be any reason to worry about too many amps?
I’ll just find a the proper molex and charger ends; then I should be set with a good power supply for the charger. I can just leave the cable hanging out the computer case and plug my charger into it as needed. I’ll have to have my computer on while charging of course, but it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle since it’s on most of the time anyways.
I have a bunch of spare computer psus, but I don’t know where I’d start with getting them to work with the Opus.