The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Universal plug polarity damage

trail camera trouble

We had some more deer damage that's starting to threaten our Fall garden.

I dug out the trail camera, didn't have batteries but noticed an external power hole, found a universal plug, selected the proper voltage and turned it on. The screen powered up, but then went blank with a slight burning smell. I'm pretty sure I got the polarity wrong on the plug and burned it out.....Ouch.....



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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Doubt the screen would come on with the wrong polarity. More likely a capacitor was dying and blew.
Comment by Joey H Mon Aug 24 16:49:47 2015

At one time I was looking for a replacement power brick and I found out (to my amazement) that the polarity of barrel plugs is not standardized.

And to make matters worse, few power supplies or devices have a polarity symbol.

Another good reason to keep a multimeter around!

Comment by Roland_Smith Mon Aug 24 19:01:34 2015
That device operates at a specified voltage. My guess is you put in an incompatible AC adapter that outputs a higher voltage and your device lacks sufficient voltage protections.
Comment by Brandon J Mon Aug 24 20:24:55 2015





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