I'm building a small desktop video arcade system using one of those old Namco Joystick boxes which are battery driven (4 AA batteries) and have an audio and video RCA jack which you hook up directly to a tv.
There are 3 main components.
Video Game/joystick box
Regarding the power requirements. All I know is that it takes 4 AA batteries. So 6 volts. I don't know how much current it draws. Can I use a multimeter to measure this? Do I need this information to move forward?
4 Inch LCD Video Screen
Here is the range of power options for this device.
Voltage/Current/Power
5.1v / .27a / 1.377w [lowest stable voltage]
6.0v / .25a / 1.5w
6.6v / .23a / 1.518w
7.4v / .20a / 1.48w
8.0v / .18a / 1.44w
8.6v / .17a / 1.462w
9.2v / .16a / 1.472w
9.8v / .15a / 1.47w
10.4v / .14a / 1.456w
11.0v / .13a / 1.43w
11.6v / .12a / 1.392w
12.0v / .12a / 1.44w [highest recommended voltage]
Small Audio App Chip to drive a small speaker. Probably not more that 1 watt I'm guessing would be loud enough.
Not sure what to use here. Any ideas? If this also can take 6 volts then everything can be powered by one 6 volt power supply.
I've already built one of these (see below) but ended up using both the video game batteries (which powered the video game) and a separate 12 volt power supply (which powered both the LCD and an audio amp board) and I didn't like that as you had to replace the batteries as well as have it plugged in all the time. I ended up using a small 3 watt amplifier which was WAY too powerful. I could only turn it up a little before the volume was earth shattering. And this was a 3.5 audio amplifier board which cost about $12. I would prefer it to be as simple and inexpensive as possible. Just need to amplify the RCA audio output to levels appropriate to playing on a kitchen table. Not very loud.
Ideally I would like to:
- Power all three things with the (4 AA batteries) that comes with the joystick. That would be ideal as it would allow this small video arcade machine to be portable. Assuming though that the batteries didn't drain way too fast.
- If the batteries don't provide enough current then the next best thing would be a power adaptor. Something like this assuming that it could power all three components (video game/joystick, video screen and audio amplifier). Amazon.com: 6V 1A AC Adapter to dc Power Adapter 5.5/2.1mm: Electronics
Once I have the parts worked out I'm going to teach a DIY class to 5-10 young under-privileged kids where they can put their own arcade machine together. I'm hoping to keep the costs down to under $50 as I will have be self-funding this.
So my issues are:
- Can I power all this with one power supply?
- Can you recommend a small audio amplifier. Preferably less than $8 or so. I'm trying to keep the parts under $50.
- And are there issues like voltage spiking that I have to worry about when connecting multiple components like this to one power supply? Or can I just hook them up in parallel assuming they all take 6 volts and the total current draw is less than the power adapter is rated?
Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Here's my first attempt from last year. I like it a lot except for the power supply issues.
http://www.jochumson.com/project7.html
