Batteries, wallwarts, voltages and currents Re: New Classic Finds and etc. (Long)

From: Tom Jennings <tomj_at_wps.com>
Date: Mon Jan 26 19:34:11 2004

Oh man this thread is gettin' wacky!

Not only are there resistive loads, slightly-variable resistive loads,
phase-dominated AC loads, there are also ACTIVE loads, eg. 99% of
everything made today that uses a wallwart! The (example) telephone
draws little current quiescent, more when it rings, more when charging a
dead vs. full battery, a lot when you're talking, etc and nauseum.

They got them new-fangled micro-compu-compacitor thingies in 'em what
make's em all complicated. Chips, non-corn, silicon.

I think this dead horse of a thread is beaten into a thin film.

You CAN substitute wallwarts, but you gotta know what you're doing or be
lucky. If a device wants regulated voltage (eg. my Linksys WAP) it often
-- but not always! -- will say something like "5.0V x mA" on it. If a
device comes with a (say) 12V AC wart, you (the YOU that knows about
electronics, if you don't have a you that does, don't) you can
substitute a 13V, 14V, maybe even an 18V wallwart, even a DC one! Maybe.

There's no substitute for knowledge except exhaustive N x M matrix
testing with a lot of wall warts and many, expendable, copies of your
appliance. (Eg. stick with the non-smoking, functional combination.)

Someone else can have the last word. I gotta go charge my orgone
battery.

tomj


On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 14:19, Joe R. wrote:
> At 01:22 PM 1/26/04 -0700, you wrote:
> >
> >> reason that your phone smoked was the it's design relied on the internal
> >> impedence (a fancy word for resistance(R) ) to limit the current. When you
> >
> >Close, but although both are measuered in Ohms, impedence includes
> >another factor: Phase. Resistance is non reactive. That is, it does not
> >change with the frequency of the source voltage. Impedence is a
> >combination of resistance and reactance (capacitive and/or inductive),
> >and along with phase, can change with the frequency of the applied voltage.
> >
>
> I take exception with your reply! While technically true, in this case
> we were clearly talking about a battery powered telephone therefore we're
> talking about pure DC with no AC. Therefore phase, frequency and impedence
> are irrelevent. Throwing in the talk of impedence just to show off is only
> confusing the issue. The orginal poster that thought voltage didn't matter
> clearly doesn't clearly understand electricity and I didn't won't to
> confuse him further by introducing AC and it's effects.
>
> Joe
Received on Mon Jan 26 2004 - 19:34:11 GMT