I'm planning to run my FDS on batteries, and I want to know how long the battery life is. I'm guessing somewhere between 5-10 hours?
That's an interesting question. I've never tried batteries. I hope we get an answer to this question.
Indeed. The thing takes those giant C cells so if I was to pop those things in there I want to know how long they last too.
use the ac?
Quote from: kite200 on August 10, 2007, 08:22:48 pm
use the ac?
I would prefer not to plug in another AC adapter or share one from another system for the FDS, which is why I asked this question.
I think the batteries are a waste of money, maybe splicing a power adapter, putting two power outputs on it (one for the Fami and one for the FDS) would be a better solution.
If you want to know you should just do the experiment.
And please tell us how long it works.
I used my Disk System quite frequently. Like daily for five months. After that I stopped, so atleast the battery life is pretty long, considering the size. So atleast five months.
That's an amazingly efficient power use.
I wouldn't have expected that.
holy shit, I was expecting something more on the order of 5 hours instead of 5 months.
Yeah, I was initially shocked, too, and I only stopped after five months because I had to put the FDS away for awhile.
Of course, this doesn't mean that they last for five months with 12 hours a day of gameplay.
What kind of batteries does it require? And how many?
a rediculous 6 c cells
I was thinking about buying a a famicom disk system with an ac adapter. the ac adapter is 20$, so i want to know how long the batteries last on it
I would think the battery life would be pretty long. Most of the magic is in the RAM cart, which requires no power aside from what comes through the Famicom's cart slot. In fact, the RAM cart will operate without even having the FDS attached to it. The FDS drive itself should only need power when it's actively reading or writing to disk. So, you fire up your Famicom, and it loads the game into the RAM cart. You probably then need to flip to side B to get into the actual game. At that point, the FDS goes silent and uses no power until you either go into another area or level that requires it to load from disk again, or you save your game. It's a lot like how an MP3 player will cache music ahead, then shut down its hard drive to conserve power. Now, personally, I hate spending money on batteries, so I just bite the bullet and plug the FDS in. If you want to run it off battery though, I don't think it would be too often you need to replace them.
You don't need to use a FDS specific ac adapter. Assuming you live in a part of the world that uses 120v AC, just buy a universal ac adapter (the kind with like twelve different plugs) with a polarity switch. I don't remember which polarity it uses, but it should say on the bottom of the unit.
It actually doesn't say on the FDS itself that I can find. That'd be annoying if you got one without its original power supply.
The output on the included adapter is 9V, 400mA, center negative
1A = 1000mA, right?
Yes, sir! ;)
whats the diameter of the famicom ac adapter plug?
do they need to be exactly the same or can you use something similar?
EDIT: Removed double post. --JC
FDS plug diameter is a little bigger than the Famicom one, so a Famicom adapter or a universal one would work perfectly on a FDS.
do you know the exact outer and inner diameter of the famicom ac adapter?
I'd have to get a microcaliper to measure that. I can get you an answer tomorrow or on Jan 1st if my uncle lends me his.
Can you not just use batteries? :D
It takes like 6 C batteries...
Yeah?
Why not do that? :P
Bobinsky! I'm sorry I wasn't able to answer your question. I did write it down, though, and I plan to answer it in one of our upcoming Denshimail segments!
I want to experimentally test the assertation about the RAM cartridge. I suspected when Bobinsky asked me this question that the battery was just for reading/writing the disk and sending the data to the RAM cart, but I also wondered if it was more than a datalink. It's really as easy as unplugging it while a game is in operation, but I still want to do it to test for sure.
Knowing all this makes the batteries seem much less of an insane option (certainly more sane than taking up an entire plug or three -- since the adapter might cover one up). Since I want to get batteries for the test, I might as well keep them in there until they run out! :O
I actually tried that out. The game will continue to run until you reach a point where it would need to load again, then you get a Disk Set Error. I don't think the RAM cart can tell the difference between there not being a disk in the FDS, and it being disconnected. Also, because of the way things shipped, I actually got my RAM cart a day or two before the FDS itself. For curiosity's sake, I stuck the RAM cart in my Famicom and it did the "Please Set Disk Card" demo screen just as if the FDS was present and waiting for a disk.
Correct, the RAM cart itself runs off the +5 volts from the Famicom's cart connector.
The batteries are used to move the drive motor and nothing else.
Since the disk drive is used in short bursts, the batteries should last a pretty long time.
Yay, another mystery solved! :D
So... would it be plain impossible to move the drive motor with the power from the cart connector?