So I just won an Iscan HD without a power supply on eBay. The requirements seem to be kind of odd, 6 volts and 5 amps. They're selling the power supply on the DVDO site, but it's 69 bucks. The adapters I find on eBay either have the right voltage and wrong amplitude (6v 1000mA) or wrong voltage and right amplitude (12.6v 5A). Anyone know of an adapter that'll work that's less then seventy dollars?

Well, the problem is, that connector that plugs into the unit itself (at least going by the picture on that site) looks like it might be proprietary. Therefore, it'd be really tough to find a generic replacement.

Though it does look a little like the old connector for Dell laptops, but I wouldn't suggest trying any of those. Those are rated for far higher power:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/F-Dell-Laptop-L ... 1c1c7f4d2e

I saw that listing on Ebay. Bothered me cause I had seen those same pictures used for about 3 other listings. You need to match the voltage, and get with the correct amount of Amperage or more. Its okay to have one with too high of amperage. Its not okay to get one that doesn't match voltage. Here's the way it works voltage is like the force of the electricity. The voltage is how much the AC Adapter will supply. The amps are a rating of how much current the AC is rated to supply. This means that if your device only requires 1A and you give it an AC Adapter rated for 2A, the device will still only pull 1A. Now if your device requires 4A and you used a 2A rated AC Adapter, the device would demand the AC Adapter still give it 4A. Either the AC would be unable to do so, or it would be taxed beyond what it was designed for. This would cause excessive heat, which is a fire hazard. Doing this is unlikely to harm the device. More likely the AC Adapter will fail in very little time. Now if you gave a device an AC adapter will too much voltage, the AC Adapter would provide that much voltage which could fry the internal components.

More important that getting voltage or amps right is polarity. This is usually a non issue, but I come from a video game community where this matters more. The tips of the AC adapter are either positive center, or negative center. Most stuff is positive center. But sometimes stuff is negative center. Video game systems especially are negative center. If you use the wrong polarity you will instantly fry it. If you used too many voltages its not guaranteed to fry. Using the wrong polarity is. I'm not sure if the DVDO is positive center. I'm pretty sure it is, but double check, and make sure your AC adapter is the same.

Lastly, don't worry too much about tip size. Find an AC adapter with the correct rating, then find an AC adapter will the correct tip. Its very easy to frankenstein them together, Its not hard to do. In fact its good lesson on how wires and electronics work. Its not absolutely necessary to solder the wires, but its better for a long term connection. But soldering two wires together is about the easiest thing you can solder, and is a good starting point, so we all can be able to fix our own stuff. Soldering two wires together and using shrink tubing will look very close to professional. Twisting wires together and using electrical tape can also work, but its not as pretty, and not as reliable.

I doubt the tip is actually proprietary. There are few actual proprietary tips out there. Once you get it put up a pic of the back of the AC adapter. I have a lot of AC Adapters, and I can probably find one that will work.

Edit: from looking at the back, I highly doubt its proprietary. It looks like a very common plug. I can't tell from that picture. What are the power requirements? 6VDC 5A Positive Center?

I can't seem to find anything in the manual that says whether it's "positive center" or "negative center," but here's a diagram from the manual.


Also, is there a limit to how much higher the amp rating can be? And the closest to 6v 5a I've been able to find is 6v 1.5a. I'm assuming this is too low to work at all, right? Would too low an amp rating only affect the adapter or would the device (Iscan) also be at risk?

EDIT: Just found a 6v 7a adapter, will this (probably) work? I found it through an old AVS forum post, the guy bought it for his VP50, would it still work on an Iscan HD?

A 7-amp adapter would be just fine, & that diagramme clearly shows "center pin positive".

That diagram says center positive. The + points to the center. This is the most typical type of AC adapter. There is not limit to how much higher the amperage can be. The amperage is just a rating of how much amperage that AC can provide. It cannot safely provide more than that. The device controls how much current it pulls. The device tells you its voltage requirements and how many amps it will pull from the AC Adapter.

Bottom line, you need a positive center AC Adapter, with 6VDC, and at least 5A. You cannot use one with too low of an amp rating. The AC adapter would not be able to reliably supply the DVDO with the current it requires. This likely would only harm the AC Adapter, but it could harm the DVDO. Either way this setup would not work for long. The AC Adapter probably wouldn't ever be able to turn on the DVDO.

You probably will have a hard time finding one. That is a lot of power it requires. Most stuff doesn't need over 2A. I couldn't find one in my collection that was over 2.1A. Likely to find out you'll have to look at laptop adapters. The problem with those is a lot of times that have off the wall ratings. like 12.28V, you're gonna have a hard time finding ones with such a low amount of V, and you will almost certainly have to attach a new tip.

Have a look at the Radio Shack adapters which use the "adaptaplug" system. You can put whatever tip you need to on them, with whatever polarity, & some of them are quite high-powered, as well as having switchable voltage.

I don't know if they provide such high amperage. All the ones I've seen top out at very low amperages, around 500mA

I hate to bump an old thread, but I just thought I'd mention I just got the power supply and it's been working great so far.

Two things bother me about that power supply. One, He doesn't actually list the output Voltage, not where I see anyway. And two, its rated for an input of 100V to 220V at 50hz. American power is 60hz. I don't know what effect that will have.

Almost certainly none. A 100~220 V supply is surely a switching regulator, which cares very little for input current frequency. It might not work so well on 400 Hz aircraft power, but that's a bit out of the realm of the likely.