PSA: Keep old wall bugs and power supplies

[chadbag]

I am cleaning up my basement so I can erect a layout in the space.   I have been throwing away old electronics that have gathered and not been used in a long while.  However, I am keeping the wall bugs (the square plug-in transformers that power lots of our stuff) and other power supplies (like the ones that aren'y wall bugs, but have cords on both ends for the mains/AC and for the output (usually DC).

 

I have a few that output 5V and reasonable amps, and couple that output 12V at reasonable amps (old Apple Airports for example), and several from older external firewire/usb/e-sata enclosures that output both 12V and 5V at reasonable amps.

 

When you are wiring up your lights, and anything else that needs power on your layout, who couldn't use some handy extra 12V or 5V power supplies?   They go in my box of useful stuff until the time they are needed to power lighting or something.   (Or, since many of these, are just generic, when I need power on some other electronic device where the wall bug has gone south [stopped working] or got lost)

 

So, don't get rid of the power supplies (at least ones that have reasonable outputs) when you throw away old electronics.

 

 

[katoftw]

Old mobile phone (cell for you State siders) chargers are also good. 5v/12v and 500-2500mA.

Edited December 31, 2018 by katoftw

[cteno4]

Yep big box of them here! Also handy for other project of lost adapters for other items as well. I’ve always called them wall warts.

 

you do want to make sure to have a number of leds on these power supplies or use larger resistors as under small loads many of these cheap unregulated wall warts will pump out more volts than they are rated and can then blow leds. Some had these issues here with cheap led strips using a 12v wall wart. The resistors used on the led strips run them at near full amperage so a small variation in voltage and 20% tolerance on a cheap resistor can blow them. 

 

I find the 5v very handy for leds as not a big drop (ie wasting most of the power to heat) for 3v leds and sooo universal these days.

 

jeff