Neuros OSD 1.0 power supply

[destruk]

I had thought the power supply was bad on this - so I bought a new one.  Checking the Wiki here:  http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/Neuros_OSD_1.0#Basic_Specs said that any old 5V power adaptor with 1amp would do the trick so I bought one for $6 on Amazon.  It arrived today, plugged it in, and the Neuros booted right up, but every time I turned on a powered-on device connected to the composite IN port, the Neuros would reboot itself.  So I connected a DVD player with SVideo to the SVideo In port, and audio cables to the miniplug-in (if that's what you call it) and that allowed it to pass-thru video and audio fine to the tv.  The next issue was every time I hit record to the 16GB SD card, it would reboot itself.  I looked at the original power supply it came with and noticed it's rated for 5 Volts and 2 Amps.  I plugged that in and everything runs fine without a problem during viewing or recording.

I suggest changing the wiki to reflect for actual use of the product, a 2 amp power supply might be a better idea than relying on a power supply designed for a PSP.

BTW - the Neuros Store is broken - it says no products are available for any category selected.

[ChadV]

The wiki is publicly editable, so if you see any other changes that need made, feel free!  (I already nudged the Amperage listed.)

Store isn't broken.  There are no products available at this time.

[destruk]

Thanks for that.  Are you still developing products?

[ChadV]

Neuros has exited the consumer facing business (at least for the time being). We've done this in order to focus our attention on licensing and private label. These are products Neuros designs, develops and manufactures for other consumer brands. this is a strategy that really allows us to focus on our strengths in engineering and innovation.

[pfft2001]

Neuros has exited the consumer facing business (at least for the time being). We've done this in order to focus our attention on licensing and private label. These are products Neuros designs, develops and manufactures for other consumer brands. this is a strategy that really allows us to focus on our strengths in engineering and innovation.

I am curious as to which products there are in the pipeline (or already being sold) that are Neuros-designed.

It'd be nice to be given a heads-up on what things to look for - for those of us who are fans of Neuros products.

[ChadV]

I know of a couple projects that were started, but not current status or if they're for public knowledge or not...

Let's just say that, having worked support more than a bit, the things Neuros has gotten the best comments on design-wise is what we appear to be sticking to.

[pfft2001]

I know of a couple projects that were started, but not current status or if they're for public knowledge or not...

Thanks - and understood...

Let's just say that, having worked support more than a bit, the things Neuros has gotten the best comments on design-wise is what we appear to be sticking to.

Just out of curiosity, is the OSD in that category?

[ChadV]

Just out of curiosity, is the OSD in that category?

You need to go backwards a few product generations, and forward one. 

[ChadV]

I got the official O.K. to post this one, since it's out:

http://boingboing.net/2012/01/11/android-dock-charges-plays-mu.html

[heyrick]

I got the official O.K. to post this one, since it's out:

I listen with earphones or headphones... but I'm pretty intrigued by the control ability here. Can this device control your Android music player remotely? If so, I wonder if there would be any sort of possibility to have this part of it as a gadget inline with the headphone cable? I remember the old days when I used to press buttons on my MP3 player, so half-asleep I could clicky-clicky over songs I didn't feel like listening to. Now it's all done on the touch screen and - believe me - when you're half asleep in a dark room and the screen lights up, it's like somebody ramming hot pins into your eyes. I'd love a way to control, say, WinAMP (or whatever - I'm using an old version since they broke it in the name of advertising), using something with actual buttons. The best I can get is the single button on the hands-free kit, and that is usually hardwired to be pause/play. A skip-to-next-track option would be nice, but for some reason devs don't tend to think of stuff like that.


Best wishes,

Rick.

[ChadV]

I've not seen it in person, but I believe it uses the headphone control schema if you don't have the software installed.  So Play/Pause/FF/RW should all be available.

[heyrick]

Hi,

Just to dip my oar in the water, I rebooted my OSD just now (playing around with it again...) and I took the opportunity to pull out the power pack and read the writing.

The official PSU is rated 5V 1.5A. 


Some stuff can be surprising. I have a PS2 that I run off my eeePC's power supply as nothing else I have in that voltage range even comes close to being capable...


PS: My maths/memory sucks - what is 5V/1.5A in watts? And what does that draw (in watts) at 230V? Anybody?


Best wishes,

Rick.

[ChadV]

W = V * A

So the OSD DC draw is 7.5W.  The transformer has its own inefficiencies, but 7.5W = 230v * 0.03A  So certainly less than 0.5A

[pfft2001]

W = V * A

So the OSD DC draw is 7.5W.  The transformer has its own inefficiencies, but 7.5W = 230v * 0.03A  So certainly less than 0.5A

That's 7.5W max.  I.e., that's the maximum safe current draw from the power supply.  It is unlikely that the OSD ever draws the full (allowable) current (since if it did, the supply would probably be running a little hot).

Regarding efficiency, my understanding is that these supplies are generally pretty inefficient - like in the 10% range.  So, the input might be 60 or 70 watts to generate 6 or 7 output watts.  I don't have an OSD PSU in front of me to check, but usually the input power requirement (either watts or amps at line voltage) is specificed alongside the output specs.

[heyrick]

Hi,

I thought switchmode supplies were pretty efficient? <clicky> Yes, linear supplies are 30-40% and switchmode can be 60-70% with a good design reaching 95% efficiency. Since these are little <cough> mass-produced-in-China </cough> supplies, I'd reckon around 70%ish (the one powering my OSD is stone cold).
[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply ]

For the power rating of the PSU, good guess. Here's a photo of the label:

(hosted on imageshack because somebody else's backup process has run my website over quota (long explanation, don't bother asking); it'll be sorted out soon but soon isn't right now...)


I like the part where it says a switchmode could fail catastrophically (as much as near dumping mains onto the power output). I've never in my life experienced a switchmode failure that was any more dramatic than exploding a 20-year-old capacitor.
On the other hand, I had a torrodial (sp?) linear supply in an MDFS server fail. Of the immediate aftermath, the fuse in the MDFS's plug (5A) had exploded. The fuse in the first extension lead (5A) had exploded. The fuse in the second extension lead (13A) had exploded. The ring main fuse (something like 30A) was toast, so much so that there was molten gunk and lots of smoke inside the fusebox. The master supply fuse (something like 60A?) survived.
Of the analysis... The MDFS was toast. The only thing that even started up was the SCSI harddisc. I don't know if it actually *works*, it's a weird format so while it sort-of talks to my SCSI card, I am not sure if it is returning correct data or gibberish. It *looked* correct, but it's moot now - there's not much call for a ~200Mb SCSI drive these days.
The line drivers in the BBC Micro were okay as it wasn't plugged in at the time. The SJ network bridge had three sets of line drivers, now two are dead. The A310's network card was junk. The A3000's likewise, and the A5000 too. Given that the only viable explanation is something went terribly terribly wrong and bridged live and earth, this means that 240VAC hit the earthing and as such it is probably lucky that the network cards took the brunt of the blast and that it didn't wipe out all of the computers. The network transient suppressor did exactly zero. It would protect me for a high voltage on one of the data/clock lines, but not for on earth as that's not ever supposed to happen.

There ya go, lovely story to end the week.


For those who have no idea what I'm talking about - we Acornites were running LANs with user level access and printer sharing back in the AppleII era (before the rise of the x86 PC), on similar hardware (6502s and Z80s). Take a peek at http://www.heyrick.co.uk/econet/ for some info. It wasn't really until Windows98 that desktop PCs caught up with the sort of stuff we'd taken for granted for decades. But then again, it wasn't until XP's ClearType that Microsoft managed to provide the level of anti-aliased on-screen text that we had sussed in '89 thanks to the RISC OS FontManager. Here's an example lifted from a version of RISC OS dating to 1996; and remember this would be around the same time as Windows95 OSR2 and the very very ugly single-pixel-wide Arial font everywhere, looking really no better than did Windows 3.11...

Okay, that's my little advocacy spiel over. On final thing, RISC OS is being readied for the RaspberryPi. It's an old outdated OS (don't ask about inter-process memory protection!) but it's still kicking and it's the friendliest and most accessible system you'll ever come across. https://www.riscosopen.org/


Best wishes,

Rick.

PS: Connection? The OSD runs on ARM. RISC OS's core is pretty much pure ARM code. And the entire OS as a ROM image runs to 5-6Mb. This is why Arizona/OSDng overrunning a 16Mb Flash scares me. It's a real WTF? moment. Of course, with the emergence of Android based phones and tablets, some people are saying "wouldn't it be interesting to see if we can have an ARM powered desktop computer". Duh. Where d'you think the ARM came from in the first place!?