[PLUG] WRT54GL on sale at Fry's

[Keith Lofstrom]

> Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> >I suggest replacing the wall wart power supply that comes with
> >12V/1A Linksys units with a more efficient and trustworthy 
> >switching power supply.  If your wall power is not rock solid
> >(a furnace or refrigerator motor startup can sag the voltage)
> >then you may brick one of these units while flashing it. 
> >
> 
On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 11:33:47AM -0800, Galen Seitz wrote:
> Keith, are you sure this is necessary?  The last WRT54GL I bought had a 
> wall wart that was significantly different in appearance compared to 
> earlier versions.  I suspect the new adapter is a switching power 
> supply, probably due to new CA regulation requiring higher efficiency. 
> Of course that doesn't mean the new adapter will be any better at 
> handling line dropouts.

Wonderful news!  If they are switchers, I imagine they have enough
capacitor storage to ride out a cycle or two of line sag, otherwise
the efficiency would suffer.  The old transformer bricks were marginal
anyway.

In any case, it should be easy enough to tell by weighing the wall
wart in your hand.  Transformer iron is HEAVY.  I wonder how much
Linksys saves on shipping costs, if nothing else?  With the price
of metal rising, and slack demand lowering the price of some 
electronics, I wonder if the total cost of a switcher has dropped
below the cost of a dumb transformer unit yet?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs