Colecovision Power Supply

[Trent555]

Hi folks, just a quick question. When i plug in my CV P/S, after an hour of gaming or so, it makes quite the audible "buzzing/humming" noise, it gets warm, but not overly hot to the touch. Is this a tell tale sign that its about to bite the bullet? Should i be sourcing out a backup P/S? Its the Canadian type P/S, the big brick that sits on the floor. Thanks for looking.

[coleconut]

Hi folks, just a quick question. When i plug in my CV P/S, after an hour of gaming or so, it makes quite the audible "buzzing/humming" noise, it gets warm, but not overly hot to the touch. Is this a tell tale sign that its about to bite the bullet? Should i be sourcing out a backup P/S? Its the Canadian type P/S, the big brick that sits on the floor. Thanks for looking.

They all humm although I usually have to put my ear close to hear. And they all get warm, Id be alarmed if warm turned to hot, and a spare is always a fairly good idea.

[channelmaniac]

The power supplies can be fixed if they fail.

[coleconut]

The power supplies can be fixed if they fail.

There is a

on the subject, it provides some good pointers. He talks about cutting the unit open with a dremmel but I have heard (but not tried) rapping it a few times on the sides near the seams with a mallet to open it up without cutting.

[channelmaniac]

I used a hammer. Just repeatedly whack it on the short side of the seam all the way around the power supply until you crack the seam.

 

The one I fixed was FULL of bad solder joints. I just shotgunned the whole thing and re-assembled it. There were 3 component legs that had broken loose from their poor solder connections.

 

The case can be superglued or epoxied back together when you finish. Use tape to hold it together until the glue/epoxy sets.

 

Hell, while in there you could shotgun the caps.

[Murph74]

You can also forgo the trouble and research an internal power supply mod, or look into wiring up an Arcade Switching Power Supply (About $20 on line, probably cheaper on craigslist from a local arcade collector) for a more modern and possibly stable solution. There's a thread here from a while back about doing so for the Adam, too.

 

There's also a vendor local to me that has a large box of the power supplies loose, but wanted $8 a piece for em untested, so I've passed thus far based on age.

[Rik]

Finding a working original CV power supply is something to celebrate indeed.And considering the age,how long will the working one you found work till it blows on you.Out of 10 I've found,only half worked.I say its time to find/build an equivalent power supply,in my case also.Some can be repaired,but a lot are beyond repair I've found.