Hipgear power consumption

xenepp · Post by **xenepp** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:00 am

And loads of it the greedy little fella!

I have a PAL PS2 '4gamers' screen pad (marketed in US as HipGear). I think it might be diffrent though.

I by-passed the 7808 (in this case the 78M08), added my 6v line, flipped the switch.... ziltch.

"Ok.." I thought, "I'll connect it to my wall wart and up the DC supply to 7.5". Still nothin. Upped it a little more to 9v, heck even 12v didn't get a rise out of the thing!! Plugged in the original adaptor (10.5v)... life. So why didn't it work at even 12v?

Because the flippin thing needs a DC voltage @ 500ma whereas my supply (and I expect many other's) is 300ma.

Am I screwed or is there a work-around for this?

-Joel

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:55 am

hmm. I was able to get the screen running at anything above 4.9V Make shure your power is hooked up correctly. Mine did not work at first, but I noticed I had to connect the power to bolth the imput pin and the output pin of the regulator. (i desoldered it, and it was easier)

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 9:11 am

Why did you only have a 300 mah power supply? I'm pretty sure t needs at lease 500 mah.
Just use 4 normal AA's and see what happens, it should work fine.

Post by **gannon** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:54 pm

my last hipgear screen ran at 270mA, 100 of which were used for the ccfl

Post by **Triton** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:02 pm

wow, thats almosyt nothing!

xenepp · Post by **xenepp** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:05 pm

Hmm. I think I may be a little confused about this power regulator and what to do with it. It's not inline with my power line on the hipgear pcb, but I did desolder it and tried to bypass it (when it was still connected).

I'll try 4 AAs in the mean time, but I do think diffrent Hip Gears have diffrent power requirments and that the PAL version is diffrent. I'll get a scan up tomorrow of the PCB if I can.

-Joel

A.J. Franzman · Post by **A.J. Franzman** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:56 pm

To bypass the 7808 regulator in a Hip Gear screen, really means to remove it. Then, regarding the 3 holes where it came from: ignore the center hole, and solder a small piece of wire to connect the other 2 together.

Once you have done this, do not power the screen from more than 15.0 VDC - this is the absolute max rated voltage for the audio amp. Some "12 volt" DC wall warts may be more than that when lightly loaded. Also, if your portable is capable of recharging batteries internally while playing, be sure that voltage reaching the screen while charging is not too high.