help me power my famicom !

ondafly

evening men !

I want to try out my famicom - I never bothered to buy a power supply for it originally as I never intended to power it on :pac: However I've recently gotten curious and I want to see what Mario looks like on the 1983 Ninty.

I have an RF unit for it, so that should give me some sort of picture on the TV, however I now need to find a suitable power adapter. The JPN neo geo adapater fits perfectly, but I don't want to risk it without confirming, so if anyone can suggest a suitable power supply please do - otherwise I'll just buy one.

Dr Bob

if you've a snes , they use the same psu ,so you could use that
.

ondafly

but the SNES power supply is for EU voltages ? whereas I need one at 110 ? hence I guess I'm wondering will the Neo Geo one work, as thats 110

Dr Bob

ondafly wrote: »

but the SNES power supply is for EU voltages ? whereas I need one at 110 ? hence I guess I'm wondering will the Neo Geo one work, as thats 110

ah sorry , force of habit ,read "nes" for famicom.
The SNES one wont work in that case, sorry.

o1s1n

It actually depends on what the power supply is putting out. Not what it takes in. The 110/220 PAL/NTSC difference relates to the socket power going into the power supply only which is AC power. If you get the wrong AC power into the wrong power supply, BOOM goes the power supply. You need a step down transformer to use a 110v AC power supply here in Europe where we use 220v AC power.

What the power supply then puts out then relates to the console. (DC power)

So if you have the correct power supply for the correct region it won't explode. And then that'll put out whatever DC power into the console.

So you just have to make sure the DC power is correct.

Snes power supplies are what, DC9v? Check if the famicom takes the same voltage in and it'll work grand!

ondafly

taken from famicom world

The Japanese power adaptor has the following specs:

AC-Adaptor
MODEL HVC-002
AC100V 50/60Hz 18VA
DC10V 850mA
+ —— C——- -

So I guess what I'm trying to do, is use an existing power supply to get it going. I have available JPN Neo Geo power supply with a stepdown convertor, and also have SNES/NES power supplies to hand and of course SEGA ones about the place. Just don't want this little bad boy to go bang !

o1s1n

You should read up a bit on the difference between AC and DC. AC is what comes out of the wall and what blows up power supplies if you get it wrong (Hence the need for step down transformer)

DC is what comes out of the power supply and goes to your electronic devices.

AC100V 50/60Hz 18VA - this is what a Japanese power supply expects from a socket. If you plug that in here - Bang. Therefore you need a step down.

However if you have an EU Snes power cable then that solves that problem. As it is made for our 220V AC.

DC10V 850mA is what the power supply is sending to the console. From what I can see, the Snes power supply sends DC9V. So it should work.

What is the DC output on the Neo Geo power supply?

Edit\ Just to let you know, I was a bit confused about this myself and up until recently would only use a Sega Nomad with a step down. Then I realized that it works perfectly fine with an EU power supply! Doh..!

European NES/SNES adapters are actually 9V AC but DC adapters seem to be fine with them. I wouldn't know about feeding AC into something that expects DC though.

About the picture end, the RF adapter will output in the Japanese variant of NTSC-M. While European TVs can use a baseband NTSC signal they can rarely handle a broadcast NTSC signal. You'll probably get a picture but no sound.

o1s1n

Just on the subject of using different region power supplies, here's something important to note in relation to other consoles -

Q10. Instead of using a step down converter, can I just plug in a UK power supply?

You can provided the console has an external power supply. This is important as only Nintendo consoles tend to have external supplies. The PS2, PSone, X Box and DC all have internal supplies with a simple power lead. Using a UK lead will send 240 volts through the internal power supply blowing it to kingdom come and most likely crippling the machine instead. Don’t do it.

ondafly

cheers for the advice folks - I'm sure you can all appreciate the need to power up a console you've never played before I think I'll give the snes supply a go.

Neo Geo stats - Input : 50Hertz 0.21A
AC 220/240 VoltsOutput : DC5V 3A

so I reckon that won't have enough umpf to get it going.

and also as Karsini rightly pointed out - I'm not even 100% guaranteed to even get a picture due to it outputting NTSC-m signal.

o1s1n

ondafly wrote: »

cheers for the advice folks - I'm sure you can all appreciate the need to power up a console you've never played before I think I'll give the snes supply a go.

I'm fairly sure it'll work. If it explodes it's from something totally unrelated. Like corroded parts or left over stashed Iranian plutonium from the cold war.

ondafly wrote: »

Neo Geo stats - Input : 50Hertz 0.21A
AC 220/240 VoltsOutput : DC5V 3A

so I reckon that won't have enough umpf to get it going.

and also as Karsini rightly pointed out - I'm not even 100% guaranteed to even get a picture due to it outputting NTSC-m signal.

Are you sure the Neo Geo power supply is Japanese? They're PAL stats. 50hz and AC 220/240 volts supply. Odd!

ondafly

o1s1n wrote: »

I'm fairly sure it'll work. If it explodes it's from something totally unrelated. Like corroded parts or left over stashed Iranian plutonium from the cold war.



Are you sure the Neo Geo power supply is Japanese? They're PAL stats. 50hz and AC 220/240 volts supply. Odd!

my bad - I had copied/pasted from the web. The power supply was actually quite different

Anyway I ended up using the Neo Geo power supply as it was the closest in terms of giving me the right power.

So after a couple of deep breaths I plugged it in - nothing went bang ! so I began tuning in the TV, and as suspected it took awhile, but I ended up with this


Yes the picture is in colour. The sound was barely audible and obviously the colour is off. However one thing that struck me, was how fast the game played ! I couldn't believe it, we've been stuck in the PAL dark ages for so long ! Anyway after all that I powered it off and put it away for another day.

Thanks to everyone for advice etc - just need to work out how my TV can accept a JPN RF signal, or if its even possible. Perhaps a USB tv card for my pc might do the trick.