Should I buy these two untested Sega CDXs for $83?

[Croooow!]

so what happened?

I brought them to a repair place in town and haven't heard anything yet. I should probably check on that tomorrow.

[final fight cd]

what kind of a repair shop did you take it to?

i had a busted turbo grafx 16 cd add on and everybody i called wouldn't even try to work on it. maybe because i told them it was a video game system. i probably should just have said cd player.

[DinnerX]

There seems to be a misunderstanding of electrical principles here.

Ac adapters don’t always put out exactly the voltage they say they are going to. If you used a voltmeter to test your ac adapters you’d probably find they are outputting a little bit higher or lower voltages than they are set to.

Electrical components can vary in what voltages they will tolorate, even if the components are supposed to be exactly the same chip. So while one chip that wants 9.5v may work at 9v another of the same type may not.

When you combine these factors your probably both right for your situations irixith and samsonlonghair.

Also, a system cannot request more or less voltage from an adapter. That is why you set the voltage on variable ac adapters but you never find ac adapters where the amps can be set. The voltage is what it is set too (roughly). Amps on the other hand do change based on what the system wants.

I’ll use the classic water example. Suppose you were drinking water through a straw. The size of the straw (the Voltage) will not change. The rate at which you drink (the Amp) is controlled by you. The amps listed on an ac adapter is the maximum voltage it can provide. So long as the max amps of an ac adapter is above what the system needs it is OK if the voltage is set right. So if you had a 9.5 volt ac adapter with a max amps of 1 bazzillion the system should work fine since it does not need more than a bazzillion amps. If the system needed a bazzillion and 5 amps, however, the ac adapter would overheat.

The polarity of the tip can matter in some cases as certain components will only allow electricity through one way, so if the polarity is backwards then it won’t work. May not be the case here though.

Just trying to help...hope this doesn't get taken the wrong way.

[Ziggy]

I don't know how true that is about the amps. I once plugged a 9v adapter into a device (that requires 9v) but the adapter had a much higher mA rating than the device did. I don't recall exact numbers, but it was something like 500mA and 1.5A. The numbers might have been even further apart. The device actually started smoking. I know you can go a little higher with the amps, I've done this plenty of times before, but I'd keep it with in reason. I'd try to put a cap of a few hundred mA at most. I don't have a complete understanding of how electricity works, but I know that smoke is bad. Maybe there were some other elements at play, but I just know I wont be trying that again any time soon.

[DinnerX]

I don't know how true that is about the amps. I once plugged a 9v adapter into a device (that requires 9v) but the adapter had a much higher mA rating than the device did. I don't recall exact numbers, but it was something like 500mA and 1.5A. The numbers might have been even further apart. The device actually started smoking. I know you can go a little higher with the amps, I've done this plenty of times before, but I'd keep it with in reason. I'd try to put a cap of a few hundred mA at most. I don't have a complete understanding of how electricity works, but I know that smoke is bad. Maybe there were some other elements at play, but I just know I wont be trying that again any time soon.

Hmm. Well that stinks. Don't know why that would have happened. All the circuits and components in most items just add up to a bunch of resistance. Ohms law says volts/ohms(resistance)=amps. So if you feed something the right volts it should have to get the right amps. I've never had an issue but if there are exceptions play it safe then.

[Ziggy]

Yeah, like I said, I'm no world renown electricity expert. I just know that I saw smoke and smelt burning electronics.

You can indeed use an adapter with a higher mA rating, but after my experience, I would definitely opt to play it safe and stay with in a few hundred mA if possible. I wouldn't go as far as to say ∞ mA is safe with anything as long as the voltage is correct.

[Hobie-wan]

Ac adapters don’t always put out exactly the voltage they say they are going to. If you used a voltmeter to test your ac adapters you’d probably find they are outputting a little bit higher or lower voltages than they are set to.

Sometimes that can be because the adapter was poorly made or aging components have changed the output. It can also be because the adapter puts out a slightly different output if it is not 'loaded' properly. A multimeter isn't going to be much of a load compared to the actual device, especially things that have motors and other heavy load devices in them.

[theclaw]

These being so hard to find apart from their console, more goes to show the extent of people's ignorance. CDX power adapters clearly and explicitly state they are for CDX.

[RiverBoa999]

The only ones that work with it that aren't the original CDX adapters are the JVC X'Eye AC adapters, which are as rare. There was a guy on ebay not too long ago that was making custom 9.5v 1.5A adapters for a bunch of people that didn't have an original, and these work great. I don't think he does anymore, but if you can find one, go for it.

[jeffro11]

Voltage and amperage are mutually dependent.

When Amperage is reduced Voltage increases. This is how they get past the energy loss in High Voltage transmission lines.

This also works vice versa... This is why your devices smoke.