7407 Coin Sorter - External power supply?

Joe,

You won't find it on either the Lionel or Lionel Parts websites because it's not a Lionel product. Lionel never made or sold these, another company did.

It was marketed by a company called Emson, which licensed the Lionel trademark from Lionel itself. Emson is most widely known for selling its stuff via TV commercials and infomercials, and in stores like Bed Bath and Beyond. Packaging is almost always marked with "As Seen on TV", and the box for the coin sorter is.

Now, here's the problem: These are very inexpensive products and don't appear to have full service support. Although they did come with a warranty it appears only to have offered full replacement if the buyer received a bad one, so there is no source for individual parts.

That means that someone's going to need to open one of them up and do some reverse engineering to determine what voltage and current the external power supply should be.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but it's still doable.

Mike

For the electric engineers: if the item uses 3 1.5V "C" cells, would that give an idea of the current requirement? Are "C" cells capable of only a certain current output?

Joe,

Excellent question and a good start on the analysis.

My first question would be: When the plug from the external power supply is inserted does the jack simply disconnect the batteries and substitute power from the supply instead?

If so we need a 4.5 VDC supply, and your question immediately gets to the heart of the matter; How much current?

Mike

I only tried the 4.5V source with the batteries removed, and nothing happened. It's rated at 700 milliamps, I believe.  That's not much, I suppose, to power an electric motor, a couple of bulbs and a speaker.

Joe,

Typical drain on C cell batteries is in the range of 100 milliAmps.  Your 4.5V 700mA power supply should have more than enough power to work if connected with the correct polarity.

I'd suggest verifying the polarity of the power supply and the coin sorter.  Polarity on low voltage power supply connectors and jacks is not universal  In other words, some are center positive and outer negative and others are the opposite.

SteveH, batteries connected in SERIES add the voltage of each battery to the load, but the current capability remains the same. Three C-cells in series will deliver 4.5 volts, but can still only deliver about 100 milliamperes.

You could connect a power supply that can deliver 1,000 amps, but the coin sorter will only draw what it needs to run. So if the 700 milliamp unit didn’t work, try one a lot bigger. You have to get the voltage right, but the amp capability of the power supply is not critical, as long as it is big enough.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I will try my power supply again and try different polarity arrangements.

@Rich Melvin You are correct. Current flow capacity in series connected batteries is the same as in a single battery circuit.

I tested my ancient wall warts with a voltmeter and it looks like they are no good, so I've ordered a new one.  They are very inexpensive.

The problem was my old wall warts. The coin sorter works well with a new one. I just wish the sound was better.