I am on my third Sony T6xx phone and so have a couple of spare chargers. Output is 5.12v 450mA. Would one of these be OK as an external supply? I realise that the voltage is only just over the regulated 5v, so I hope there would be nothing subtle going on. I am only reading sensors, no motors.
My EtherTen board got distressingly hot when I leaned 12v against it.
Thank you
Phone charger for Power Supply?
Re: Phone charger for Power Supply?
Greetings!
You should be fine - there is always a tolerance on power supply voltages, and in the case of USB, 5 volts means "between 4.75 and 5.25 volts". There's more on Wikipedia here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#Power
Worth checking the total current your EtherTen project is drawing. One of my projects was taking 720mA total, due to a thirsty prototyping shield etc. Needed 2x USB feeds from the laptop to make it work right.
If yours works well on a single USB feed (500mA) it should *probably" be good on 450 mA, but it would be good to be certain of that.
hth!
You should be fine - there is always a tolerance on power supply voltages, and in the case of USB, 5 volts means "between 4.75 and 5.25 volts". There's more on Wikipedia here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#Power
Worth checking the total current your EtherTen project is drawing. One of my projects was taking 720mA total, due to a thirsty prototyping shield etc. Needed 2x USB feeds from the laptop to make it work right.
If yours works well on a single USB feed (500mA) it should *probably" be good on 450 mA, but it would be good to be certain of that.

hth!
Re: Phone charger for Power Supply?
Thanks for your comment. I have gone ahead and put a concentric on the Sony charger. My concern was putting this voltage through the on-board regulator rather than supplying through the USB port.
I take your point about ensuring adequate power. When I connected a temperature probe to my proto shield, the blue light on the EtherTen went out and the PC went ding!
I take your point about ensuring adequate power. When I connected a temperature probe to my proto shield, the blue light on the EtherTen went out and the PC went ding!
Re: Phone charger for Power Supply?
You need 7v on the coaxial dc power connection or it will not work reliably.ngp99 wrote:I have gone ahead and put a concentric on the Sony charger.
http://www.freetronics.com/pages/ethert ... EmpySKHlJk
Re: Phone charger for Power Supply?
I have been able to power the Etherten successfully with a 9V plugpack ex a dead wireless router and with a USB charger ex a dead mobile phone. The USB charger I just plugged into the USB connection on the Etherten.
Re: Phone charger for Power Supply?
It appears that the charger is not up to the job when I use the ethernet facility. I believe it is OK for anything else.
Re: Phone charger for Power Supply?
I went to the local electronics surplus store today and bought this supply and cord. Next I went to radio shack and bought banana jacks, a switch and 2 - 50 ohm 10 watt resistors. Total expendature $28.36. Very cheap for a 12 volt 10 amp switching supply with 5 volts 25 amps as a bonus.