built the ac adapter

Michael Halleen (halleen@mcs.net)
Sun, 18 Aug 1996 19:26:52 -0500 (CDT)

Hello,

I went out yesterday to buy the parts for the homemade Ogo AC adapter, as
well as the connectors to use the serial cable with an external modem.

It took me a couple hours. The hardest part was finely crafting the
piece of wood.

Here's my parts list:

At Radio Shack

SKU NO Description Price
-----------------------------------------------------------
22-179 Pocket Autorange Voltmeter 24.99
274-1577 5.5/2.1 inline jack 1.99
273-1662 Uiversal AC adapter 12.99

22-179 3 year warranty on voltmeter 9.99

26-264 Null modem adapter m-f db9 3.99
26-1388 25m-9m serial port adapter 4.59

At hardware store

4 ft wooden dowel 1.55
length of wire .13
electrical tape .59
solder 1.69

I haven't tried the external modem yet because my serial cable is at my
office.

The AC adapter runs at 3.8 volts, and the Ogo works like a champ.
However, when I put my PCMCIA modem in, the Og shut down. I removed the
card and powered back on and got a "your batteries may have been removed,
you may experience... etc.". I was able to power up with the card and ac
adapter in together, but the screen was really dim, and as soon as the
geos home screen came on, I got the "your batteries are extrememly low"
warning, but the voltmeter still read 3.8. I even had it crash so bad
that I had to SHIFT-ON-NEXT +C reboot! (Yes, I was backed up) It works
fine with an SRAM card in, so it can't be the slot. Has anyone else used
a PCMCIA modem with the AC adapter?

----------------
Michael Halleen Foresee Active Media www.foresee.com
Chicago, IL The Grand Area www.mcs.com/~halleen/
PGP me for my finger