Use of power adapters

[paul18fr]

Dear All

I've plenty of power adapters (15V@2A, 12V@1A, 9V@1A and so on) coming from various electrical devices; I've been thinking "can I use them to replace a step-down transformer (in a first stage at least) ?": serial mounting for example ...
 I'll probably have to use voltage regulators in order to smooth the signal (I'm saying that because I don't have a scope yet and hence I cannot test it).

Of course I'm thinking if it were so easy, many contributors would have proposed it, so is it a waste of time ? is there something I have to care about (I'm thinking for example in the seft heating of the adapters) ?

NB: I'm pleased in thinking that's a way to "recycle" this kind of devices that I was used to throw away in the past (bad habbit  )

Thanks for any advice or feedback ...

Paul

[Paul Price]

A power supply is a power supply, you can use these discarded power supplies to power your projects and if you add a LM317 on a heatsink you can have a nice tiny bench supply that is well-regulated, adjustable and current limited.

There is a lot of not so hard to  understand info about LM317 regulators in their spec. sheet and on this forum.

The main concern is to not overheat them by operating them at currents exceeding the rating shown on their cases. So watch out for short circuits and power supplies that are getting too hot to touch. If overloaded, most will quickly blow a tiny fuse located on the transformer winding to prevent smoke and fire hazards.

I use them all the time to work with experimental circuits.