Psp Power Supply

[VRAndy]

Protip: you can charge your pandora tru USB

Protip: USB is a slower charge than AC.

[CITATION NEEDED]

 

[#1 GameMaster]

Yes I have one and it is used heavily because I would say my PSP gets charged 2-3 times a week. I have never had a problem with it in the 2 years that I have owned it.

 

[Kag]

It would be good if it isn't a permanent cable AC adaptor
I like those with USB ports so you only need one adapter for all the devices and you just have to swap cables.

More Amps = faster charging, and PC USB only gives 500mA max (USB 2.0 Specification).
But it depends on the device and battery as well whether it can take advantage of it.

 

[Pleng]

The reason we're testing adapters is because we're still shopping around for one to include with the Pandora. We're testing them instead of buying whatever is cheapest because, as you can see, most of the cheap ones are garbage. We do have our eye on one that is of sufficient quality, but we're still on the lookout.

Really? Am I missing something here? I've bought plenty of cheapo devices with cheapo chargers. All of them have worked just fine. Although, I must confess, I'm not sure what I'd be looking for to determine weather it's a good charger or a poor charger... I mean, surely either it charges or it doesn't?

Could somebody please enlighten me as to how does a charger can charge well, or poorly?

 

[Kag]

Most people won't care but crazy people care about efficiency of the charger.
A 1A rated charger might not actually produce 800mA or <5V maybe 4.5V making it inefficient and therefore wasting electricity.
But it also depends on the Input of the charger.

But too high amps can kill your device as well, i'm not sure what's the maximum you can go thou.

 

[gruso]

The reason we're testing adapters is because we're still shopping around for one to include with the Pandora. We're testing them instead of buying whatever is cheapest because, as you can see, most of the cheap ones are garbage. We do have our eye on one that is of sufficient quality, but we're still on the lookout.

Really? Am I missing something here? I've bought plenty of cheapo devices with cheapo chargers. All of them have worked just fine. Although, I must confess, I'm not sure what I'd be looking for to determine weather it's a good charger or a poor charger... I mean, surely either it charges or it doesn't?

Could somebody please enlighten me as to how does a charger can charge well, or poorly?

MWeston did some extensive testing on a range of cheap power supplies, a while back. Some of the results were disturbing, and made me think twice about what I want to plug into Pandora (or any device). I'll try to dig the posts up.

[edit] Here we go.

Yes,stick to name brand adapters from someone you trust. We tested somecheap Chinese PSP adapter knock offs to see what we would get and theyare a nightmare. Some of them have no internal fusing which is whypeople end up with house fires and burnt up equipment. There's no waythey actually passed any UL testing with the crummy designs I have seen.

Someof them have such terrible regulation, the voltage jumps all over theplace under moderate load from the Pandora. I couldn't even imagineturning on Wifi and pulling 500mA from the USB host port at the sametime.

Oh,another problem with these adapters is that the voltage fluctuated sobadly that I couldn't even get Linux to boot all the way. The TIchipset expects a level of quality from the power it receives and itmight be rejecting the input. It's no surprise. If you buy aMotorola charger for a Motorola phone, you know they will make sure theripple and regulation is proper. The same goes for Pandora.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/47385-third-party-psp-car-charger

 

[Squidge]

Most USB-charging phones work in the same way, and is also the reason why people get confused when they use a bogo standard usb cable to a AC->USB adaptor instead of the provided charger or cable and then post questions asking why there phone doesn't charge.

Can you clarify this part of your post please? I'm not sure what you are saying people should/n't do... are you saying AC > USB adapters don't provide enough current, or that you need a special USB A > Mini B connector for it to charge and not just a normal one?

I'm saying that most phones requires a special cable to charge from an AC->USB adaptor as they depend on the identification resistor to determine maximum current draw.

I don't know if the Pandora works/will work in the same way, but it sure makes sense not to try and draw 2A from a PC.

I mean, surely either it charges or it doesn't?

Could somebody please enlighten me as to how does a charger can charge well, or poorly?

Voltage, typically. A well made power supply will give out a constant, stable voltage regardless of load. A cheap power supply may vary the voltage wildly depending on load, which can damage equipment. The other problems with cheap PSUs is that they can get very hot, and if a component fails, they send dangerous voltages to your equipment, frying that as well. A well made power supply protects against failure so that it shuts down before dangerous voltages get to the equipment being charged. Cheap PSUs also typically claim far more than they give. I've seen lots of "1KW" PC power supply that enter melt down at anything over 700W (literally, you get the smell, and then the smoke...)

But too high amps can kill your device as well, i'm not sure what's the maximum you can go thou.

Amps don't kill devices themselves, voltage does. A device will only use what current it needs (unless it has a fault, in which case, it may decide to take everything and blow itself to bits, but at that point, its dead anyway).

 

[Titcher]

I'd like if the pandora came with a USB cable, so I could charge it with my PC. My PC is on all the time and I like to think it's got better power conversion than your average power brick.

 

[rabidpoobear]

BEHOLD: http://www.meditronik.com.pl/doc/mini/usb-kabel-mini=foto=canon.jpg

it's a normal mini USB cable

/facepalm

protip: if you have an old post with incorrect information, go back and put an "EDIT:" in it with the correct information, or people will misquote your incorrect post and confusion will ensue. Don't just assume people read the forums linearly because a lot of people skip posts as they read.

 

[fuzzypinkunicorns666]

I've had a PSP AC adapter die on me before, though I wasn't using it for anything resembling it's intended purpose. I was using it to power a wifi router/DSL modem after the original power supply failed. It only lasted a few months powering the router, though I have no idea how much current it was using. It had worked fine for a few years prior doing it's intended duty of charging the PSP(now handled through a USB cable, I soldered the USB pins to the AC adaptor pins in the PSP). But I'm fairly certain the Pandora won't put anywhere near that kind of load on the power supply, unless perhaps you run it as a web server 24/7 with an external bus-powered hard drive plugged in. That would probably still use less power than the router, though.

 

[nikkopt]

BEHOLD: http://www.meditronik.com.pl/doc/mini/usb-kabel-mini=foto=canon.jpg

it's a normal mini USB cable

/facepalm

protip: if you have an old post with incorrect information, go back and put an "EDIT:" in it with the correct information, or people will misquote your incorrect post and confusion will ensue. Don't just assume people read the forums linearly because a lot of people skip posts as they read.

Well, i don't skip posts and i don't tend to come back to see if they were edited (except the first post), that's why i did it. I could have quoted my previous posts toh..

...
But too high amps can kill your device as well, i'm not sure what's the maximum you can go thou.
...

You can have an adapter with 5V - 300A and it would be perfect for the pandora (except the portability issue)

A 19V - 2A adapt -> bye bye pandora
A 5V - 0.8A adapt -> bye bye adapt

 

[Squidge]

A 5V - 0.8A adapt -> bye bye adapt

Cheap 5V adaptor would probably overheat and die, or maybe collapse internally and send god knows what voltages through to the Pandora.

A well-made adaptor will just go into current limit and either supply just the 0.8A, or nothing at all until you disconnect it.

 

[rv6502]

The reason we're testing adapters is because we're still shopping around for one to include with the Pandora. We're testing them instead of buying whatever is cheapest because, as you can see, most of the cheap ones are garbage. We do have our eye on one that is of sufficient quality, but we're still on the lookout.

Really? Am I missing something here? I've bought plenty of cheapo devices with cheapo chargers. All of them have worked just fine. Although, I must confess, I'm not sure what I'd be looking for to determine weather it's a good charger or a poor charger... I mean, surely either it charges or it doesn't?

Could somebody please enlighten me as to how does a charger can charge well, or poorly?

a cheap charger / voltage regulator will cause very short voltage spikes as the power demands changes.

its a half-good analogy but think of it like a tug of war, where one side is the power supply, the other is the pandora, but the goal is to keep the flag centered (to 5 Volts)

as the pandora pulls harder, the power supply also has to pull harder (give more power), if the pandora suddenly stop pulling hard (goes to sleep mode) the power supply has to react fast to not pull too hard and readjust itself.

good power supplies react fast and have protection to soften (filter) the adjustments.
cheap power supplies will let very short, very high voltage spikes get through to the device.

those very short spikes will not kill the pandora right away (or PSP, or other device) but will cause very small accumulating damage in the silicon and the pandora might fail 3 to 12 months later.

then people would plug the cheap adapter into another device, see that it "work" and then blame the Pandora even tho it was slowly "poisoned" by the adapter.

 

[Enverex]

I'd like if the pandora came with a USB cable, so I could charge it with my PC. My PC is on all the time and I like to think it's got better power conversion than your average power brick.

Your PC will only give a max of 500mA where as, as someone earlier stated, a power socket adapter can charge at a much higher speed.

 

[AireTamStorm]

AC: I have a PSP Charger, and an iGO Charger. Both work, but the PSP charger just seems to work -better-.
I also have a generic car adapter, but you can't charge the unit using it. Charge to "full" on that adapter... an hour of MP3 playback with the screen off later and the device runs dry. The iGO is a similar story, but not as bad. If I want a full charge, I use the adapter the device came with.

 

[valhalla]

Protip: you can charge your pandora tru USB

True, but you need a USB OTG cable (where can you get those btw? Prior to the Pandora I'd never even heard of USB-OTG).

BEHOLD: http://www.meditronik.com.pl/doc/mini/usb-kabel-mini=foto=canon.jpg

it's a normal mini USB cable

Actually there are two kinds of cables that can be used with an OTG port: one is the normal mini USB cable (mini B - A something) that can be used to charge pandora (slowly) and connect it to a PC; the other one is what is often called OTG cable, is mini A - B something and is needed to connect USB devices to the pandora, but not charging.

 

[nikkopt]

Protip: you can charge your pandora tru USB

True, but you need a USB OTG cable (where can you get those btw? Prior to the Pandora I'd never even heard of USB-OTG).

BEHOLD: http://www.meditronik.com.pl/doc/mini/usb-kabel-mini=foto=canon.jpg

it's a normal mini USB cable

Actually there are two kinds of cables that can be used with an OTG port: one is the normal mini USB cable (mini B - A something) that can be used to charge pandora (slowly) and connect it to a PC; the other one is what is often called OTG cable, is mini A - B something and is needed to connect USB devices to the pandora, but not charging.

I dunno, any device needs power..

Quoting wikipedia "USB OTG devices are backward compliant with USB 2.0 and will behave as standard USB Hosts or Devices when connected to standard (non-OTG) USB devices. The main exception is that OTG hosts are only required to provide a small amount of power, which may not be enough to connect to a non-OTG peripheral, although a powered USB hub may sidestep the issue if supported."

It's the device that is limited and not the cable i guess, you always need the power pins even if is just for 1mA. And we already know that the pandora is not limited on juice.. anyway i'm not sure if i'm right

 

[gruso]

Valhalla nailed it. Just to repeat what he said, but slightly differently:

Pandora's small USB port (mini A-B, OTG) can be used like any other mini USB port. Connect to your computer via this port and you can charge the battery (slowly) and transfer files.

This port can also host devices, this is what the OTG mode is. The port will switch to host mode when you plug in an OTG adaptor, and can supply a maximum 100mA to a hosted device.

http://pandorawiki.org/USB

Anyway, none of this helps us find a good AC adaptor.

 

[Poem58]

I think that unless the cost is in some way prohibitive, they should just source the PSP adapters. They have a proven track record.
Agree/Disagree? Let's give a firm answer so we can rest this issue and get some sort of an answer as to what they will do.

 

[GhostChaserUK]

I think that unless the cost is in some way prohibitive, they should just source the PSP adapters. They have a proven track record.
Agree/Disagree? Let's give a firm answer so we can rest this issue and get some sort of an answer as to what they will do.

the psp one wood be nice if it has the OpenPandora logo on it