I've read about several folks chopping off the molex barrel connector and soldering another one on with the polarity reversed, and this brings up a potential problem you should be aware of.
I've had my pc, modem, and other stuff plugged into different power supplies (walwarts especially) and found that these units, when reversed in this manner, can sometimes cancel or short out each other, as they are connected back to the grid receptacle or the battery you plugged into. I first noticed this problem when using a TNC & pc together with separate wal-warts for packet radio. My solution was to make a dual-polarity PSU with a positive AND negative voltage regulator and hook these up to my systems. Such units won't cancel or short out each other, and you can put whatever filter capacitor you want in there to smooth out the AC/DC ripple. I use 4700-10,000uF for this, although smaller won't hurt....unless you're also powering a DC receiver. Just thought I'd share this with you guys. Most are already more astute regarding our T's than average, so perhaps some newbies will benefit from this. Enjoy de Mike -- Mike Hamilton <[email protected]>
