How annoying that nobody in this large community that owns the cradle bothered to try it out or chip in with their remarks on the polarity. The thing is most definately center positive. I found this out by going according to the advice everyone had been blagging on about yeh gp2x center negative, dev bob center negative blah blah so logically thinking it would be center negative as well no? wrong.
When I tried my first adapter with center negative the USB connected devices would switch off. If you see this happening at any time you know something is definately wrong! and in more worse case if the cradle turns off when you plug the adapter in yank it out somethings gonna back feed and die! (if you don't have a cheap psu then you might be lucky and nothing will RIP first cheap psu I used lol).
Going on the hunch of what retro-haven said in the other thread (after killing my first cheapo psu) he was using the masterplug adapters from argos (the 2500mA one as also mentioned in the gp2x wiki). Bought that and after finding out what was what I got it all running nicely with this adapter. After trying center negative (the above happened again but thankfully the PSU is good and managed to not die when it started to backfeed into it could see the light on the PSU dimming so I knew something was wrong and yanked the cable out).
So when I tried the thing in center positive everything worked fine. All lights stayed on the USB ports and cradle stayed on. No buzzing sounds either
I even plugged in my USB 2.5" HDD and it mounted and I began watching films off it with no problem. If anything I think this official cradle is a tough cookie you'd probably could fry it with higher than 5v but not with the wrong polarity at 5v (from what I've seen but don't quote me on that I guess I was lucky well somewhat) if anything either your usb devices will have it or your PSU is gonna take it!
GPH must have known something like this would happen hence why it only says 5V 2A on the cradle and in the manual and mentions nothing about polarity. Bloody cheek. Another thing I thought the cradle LED is supposed to be Green when it's on DC adapter power? Mine stays red or I guess that is the only colour there is? I'm guessing this is the case as there is no other colour it's turned except red or off.
Hope this helps and keeps the fellow gp2x n00bs informed. Stupid GPH and their lack of information <_<
I should get guru status for saving all those potentially fried cradles from people plugging in the wrong polarity adapters
