DIYbanter - View Single Post - Determining correct AC/DC adapter for equipment

Bennett Price

wrote:
My new family owns a large selection of light toys collected over the
years. Unfortunately, in many cases the adapter is missing. Now, we
also a cache of old adapaters of varying voltages, ampages (is that a
word?) and polarities - AC/DC and AC/AC. Without the benefit of manuals
and, in some cases, no information on the toy casing either, I have had
a few mishaps blindly attempting to match up adapters to toys (mishaps
involving the smell of burning component).
My question is, in the absence of the usual information (or a
multi-tester), is there a way to determine what adapter is required for
a particular toy/appliance? Maybe opening up the toy and calculating
something from the components used inside?
In hope
Dean

For those items that also ran on batteries, you can calculate the needed
voltage as # of batteries times 1.5. Batteries are DC. You might be
able to trace the battery wiring to the jack to determine polarity.