Portrait Silhouette Replacement Power

So during a recent move I lost my power supply for my portrait. So to the internet I went. To my utter surprise and dismay I could not find a replacement one on the silhouetteamerica.com website. OK! this is upsettting. So on to Ebay.

YAY! I found one right away. Granted it's a cheap chinese knock off, but I can cut again!

EEERrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh.

24.99!!!!!!!!!!

FOR A POWER SUPPLY!!!!?????

I have bought a lot of power supplies off ebay for many things and at most pay 7 or 8 bucks and that is with free shipping. This will not simply do.

I decided to go to my friendly local neighborhood Saver's. Now for those of you who don't have a Saver's store in your state, they are like a giant Goodwill. And for those who don't have a Goodwill in their country or planet. It's a thrift store that sells all sorts of used but good items. And if you don't know what thrift store is... I am at a loss.

But at my Savers I found a whole wall of power supplies and cords. I needed a 24 volt and 1.2 amp power supply with a standard barrel jack. Unfortunately all I can find is a 24 volt at 1 amp or as it was listed on the supply is 1000 milliamps, which is one amp.

The most upsetting part is that this supply had a Coaxial connector on it meant for some odd power amplifier for cable line systems.

Well I went through all that they had and could not find one that had a barrel jack of the right size. But I knew that I could dig one up at home. Sure enough at home I found one with the right size barrel jack off of a 9v adapter.

With a little snip snip and some some stripping of the plastic I soon had the start of a transplant power jack. I was fortunate enough that the polarity of these two were exactly the same. They even both had had a white wire, which made it just a job of soldering them up.

For this next step you will need a

Soldering Iron

Solder paste / rosin

Solder

Heat shrink of varying sizes

I also used a homemade handy helper.

Before clamping I slipped heat shrink over the wires. I clamped everything and twisted the pairs together. Then applied a small amount of rosin to each wire end. I then proceeded to solder my two ends in a bread tie twist, because I think it's the strongest, but it is sometimes hard to fit into heat shrink. I Made it all fit though.

Once it was all cool. I slipped the white shrink over my solder and heated those. Then took my red larger shrink and fit it into place. I used a little fire to make everything tight and snug. Then onto the next step.

So now that everything was ready I crossed my fingers and gave a little prayer, danced a jig, gave a thanks to all the teachers who ever showed me anything electronic, and plugged her in.

SUCCESS!!!!!

She powered right up and I was back in business. I was worried that my missing .2 of amp was going to make it brown out but have had no problems with anything. And I saved 21 dollars over buying a cheap knock off one. P.s. I am part of H3 Laboratories. So we use this a lot. If you want to see more of us go to www.h3laboratories.com

I hope that if you have any power problems this helps you. Have fun cutting.