weather radio has neg. tip polarity

Thread Starter

aac9876

Joined Dec 9, 2006
124
I picked up an Eaton fr 300 crank radio because I had some gift certificates left for Cabellas. I didnt look to see that for this model it has neg. tip polarity if you want to run it off a 5v dc source. I would like to do that
occasionally although the crank works good. It seems like a stupid design mistake. The whole world might as well stick to pos tip polarity.
Can I put an adaptor on the plug to make it so I dont have to deal with it??
If I just used it as is with my pos tip polarity various stuff would it hurt it??
All the dc adaptor charging stuff I have is POS tip polarity setup.
Any ideas appreciated...:mad:
 

hgmjr

Joined Jan 28, 2005
9,027
You could buy the compatible female receptacle and male plug and a short length of 2 conductor wire and build a short adaptor cable.

hgmjr
 

hgmjr

Joined Jan 28, 2005
9,027
You did not supply us with the dimensions of the plug that you are interested in reversing so I offer the following as a example.

Here is a link to an electronics parts supplier that sells the type of plugs and jacks you need.

One solution would be to order a DCA-1 adaptor cable and a DCA-2 adaptor cable from the website and cut then two short cables in half. Discard the ends that are the wrong size and reconnect the two leads of jack and plug that are compatible with your weather radio jack so that the outer ring and the inner ring have the desired polarity.

hgmjr
 

mrmeval

Joined Jun 30, 2006
833
Rat Shack (radio shack) did sell a wall wart that had a selection of adaptor ends and it allows polarity and voltage selection.
 

bloguetronica

Joined Apr 27, 2007
1,541
I picked up an Eaton fr 300 crank radio because I had some gift certificates left for Cabellas. I didnt look to see that for this model it has neg. tip polarity if you want to run it off a 5v dc source. I would like to do that
occasionally although the crank works good. It seems like a stupid design mistake. The whole world might as well stick to pos tip polarity.
Can I put an adaptor on the plug to make it so I dont have to deal with it??
If I just used it as is with my pos tip polarity various stuff would it hurt it??
All the dc adaptor charging stuff I have is POS tip polarity setup.
Any ideas appreciated...:mad:
It is natural that older equipment uses negative polarity. Also, conventions such as these has proven to be desastrous (see the Bill Gates examples on trying to impose limiting conventions). Negative tip polarity is handy.
 
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