Re: Wall Wart for a Gecko

Hi Kelly,

No apologies necessary! There are no dumb questions (possibly a few
dumb answers, 'tho). And believe it or not, we strive on this list to
provide accurate, non insulting answers to our pals.

I can find REGULATED 5V wall warts, so this is what I use on occasion.
If you are not comfortable finding and verifying these, by all means,
use a breakout board! They are great! OR, you could wire up a little
7805 regulator and a few filter caps, and run it off of an 8 or 9V DC
wall wart. This would provide good, clean, regulated 5V for Geckos,
encoders and the like. I believe Radio Shack even has a little book on
power supplies (or possibly I.C.'s) that has a simple 5V regulator
circuit. They even have 5V supply kits (probably). Look for "kits" at
your local electronics store, often there are selections of kits
"hanging in plastic bags".

HTH

Alan KM6VV
P.S. Doesn't Dan's tach board require 5V? Where are you getting that?


ksprayberry428 wrote:

>
> I apologize for the dumb question, yes I realize 6 is more than 5 I
> learned that in the second grade even though I am a hick. I learned
> Algebra in High School. I am a mechanical engineer by trade. I just
> have a total mental block when it comes to electrical stuff. I
> realize that the light socket bites when you stick something in it
> and that the electric fence will swell your lips up like a balloon
> when you spit on it. That is my extent of electrical knowledge. I did
> manage to build my power supply and it does work. I even managed to
> build one of the optical Tachometer kits from Dan Mauch, but don't
> ask me to tell you why it works and what each component on the board
> does. The reason I asked is that I have one of the cheapo power
> supplies at home the is 1000mA and is adjust able from 1.3 Volts to
> 12 Volts. The closest thing to 5 volts is 4.5 Volts. So I took a
> meter to it and checked the voltage at 4.5 Volt setting it still said
> something like 12 Volts. I guess what I really need to ask is should
> I try to use one of these wall warts or just break down and buy one
> of those break out boards that have the 5 volt on board. Like the one
> that Doug Fortune or The Campbell guy sells.
> Thanks for your help and Berating
> Kelly Sprayberry