Frequency central power supply adapter

I was wondering if anyone knew where to get the right wall adapters (12V/1000mA AC wallwart) that the Frequency Central power supply uses because I haven’t had much luck of finding any, especially since for whatever reason they are about 20 dollars. Also, is there a way to power them portably without the use of the adapter or something? Any and all help is appreciated!

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adapter ? not sure what you mean .

I mean like wall adapters

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I have just clipped the ends off and soldered them to the board , but it is a pain if you are going to move the cases around they go all over the place and you can’t just unplug them .

Sorry I had to edit my post just to clarify more what I wanted, I’m having trouble looking for the AC wall adapters themselves because I’m not having the best of luck finding some that would work with the frequency central power supply’s voltage requirements and especially ones that are at a low price

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Hi,
search for PeakTech 4123A, it’s a 12V AC wall wart with a maximum of 1670mA current. In Germany it costs around 9€ plus shipping (buerklin).

Edit: fun fact: I bougth 2 of them last week for 9.30€ inkl. Vat. Today in the same shop they cost 21€ :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth: 120% in one week???

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Thonk has them for about £16 including shipping to the UK. It’s not that expensive - the cost is about the same as a DIY synth module.

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The reason these are so difficult to find is because they are illegal in the European union. I’ve tried to buy one from a webshop and asked about it and they shared this information with me. I believe they are illegal because many consumers don’t know the difference between AC and DC and it is very dangerous to put an AC adapter into a DC appliance.

So the shops that sell these things are simply unaware of these regulations. Fortunately, I managed to get one but I payed about 24 euros in the netherlands including shipping.

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I might also recommend trying to find a 3 amp version.

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I’m calling bullshit. Since the EU is headquartered in Brussels I picked the Belgian website for RS and here you go:

I’m pretty sure RS’s lawyers are fully aware of the relevant EU regulations.

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I’ve never heard that ac power supplies are forbidden. You can get them in lot of different shops without any problem or any message. But normally you don’t need this type of ac power supply with a transformer today, so they are quiet expensive and you don’t have a lot of different models to choose from.

If you need more power you could search for the meanwell rt 65b.

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I am getting tired of the wall warts so I started buying the meanwell power supplies these are 4.2 amp ,+12volt and -12volt with no 5volt but I have found that most modules convert the 5volt internally or at least give you a choice with a jumper .they were only $12.00 off amazon here in the U.S. and its nice because these will tap right to a plain buss board with no extra circuitry needed . but you do have to hook the mains up which may be an issue for some people .

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100% correctly as well. I know the UK isn’t in the EU any more (don’t get me started) but when we were I picked up a 1A, 12V AC wall-wart from either RS Components or CPC Farnell, both of which are lawyered up enough to know that AC wall-warts aren’t illegal, just annoying. The reason they’re hard to find is purely a case of supply and demand - most things that consumers come into contact with need DC, so there’s markedly less demand for an AC variant.

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Well, it’s something I have been told and at that time, I had a lot of trouble finding one.

If its not the case, then that’s great and we can all enjoy are FC power supplies with more ease :slight_smile:

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@nschagen where did you end up getting yours?

The products that @analogoutput mentioned are all discontinued and Peak Tech that @Stef mentioned needs a minium order of 75 Euro. I do need 3 wallwarts which is 30 Euro there, but I’m not keen on boosting my order to 75 Euro to get them.

Cheers

There are others at RS, going back to that Belgian RS link and looking from there:

(Unfortunately the category they use is “AC/DC Adapters” and a lot of the individual entries say “AC/DC Adapter” at the top but when you look below the output is -12 VAC.)

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Nice one, thanks @analogoutput. Not only are these getting less common but searching for them is a pain because every search for AC power adapter, brings up an AC/DC adapter.

Cheers for the link I’ll get mine though there

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An AC/AC adapter is really just a transformer.
You can use a transformer with your mains voltage input and a 12VAC output.

As a bonus (?) when you search for 12VAC transformer on Amazon, a bunch of 12VAC wall warts come up.

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