henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (09/13/90)
I recently got hold of a small number of cheap brick-style power supplies with good-looking specs; by the markings, they were made for Colecovision video games. (The part number is 55416 if that is useful.) The user-end connector is an oddball, which I think I've seen once or twice before but can't find during a quick browse through catalogs. The connector is female, meant to go into a receptacle with recessed male pins in it. The overall shape of the recess would be rectangular, about 1x2cm by 1cm deep, with pins like this: --------------- | O O | | O O | --------------- Pins would be about 2mm in diameter; the ones for standard Molex connectors are a bit too small. I'd appreciate any pointers to possible sources for the receptacles. In a pinch I can always just clip the funny connector off the cable and substitute something more orthodox, but it seems a shame to mess with this if I don't have to. (Cannibalizing defunct Colecovisions is an obvious possibility, but I don't have a source for them either!) All suggestions welcome. -- TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (09/14/90)
> The connector is female, meant to go into a receptacle with recessed male > pins in it. The overall shape of the recess would be rectangular, about > 1x2cm by 1cm deep, with pins like this: > > --------------- > | O O | > | O O | > --------------- > I had once thought it would be nice to have a connector like this in some size for the AC end of powered devices where the power cord goes in. The device would use a split double primary, with primary A wired to pins 1 and 3 and primary B wired to pins 2 and 4. Pins 1 and 2 would have the same polarity to them. The cords would then determine the voltage, either 120 VAC or 240 VAC by the way they are internally wired. For 120 VAC, pins 1 and 2 would connect to one side, and pins 3 and 4 would connected to the other side of the incoming AC power. For 240 VAC pins 2 and 3 would connect to each other and nothing else. Pin 1 and pin 4 woild separately be fed power. Thus you would have no need to a 120/240 changeover switch, and the power cords would have the appropriate plug on the other side for the appropriate voltages. It would not be necessary to polarize like above, but there could be a case for it to make sure that the HOT side went into the appropriate connectors, so my vision of it always was polarized as the illustration shows. You could add a grounding pin lower center. Want to use 240 VAC? Just get the proper cord with the proper plug on the end, and plug it in. Make sure the transformer and power supply handle 50 and 60 Hz, and you have single inventory international marketability without the hazards of a voltage switch or the cost of a complex voltage sensor. You only need to stock the variety of power cords which you would anyway for all the power receptacle standards. --Phil Howard, KA9WGN-- | Individual CHOICE is fundamental to a free society <phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> | no matter what the particular issue is all about.