Nazo
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2002
- Messages
- 3,672
Ok, so I'll admit I'm a DS gamer, and from time to time I plug in my quality headphones since, well, I don't really have anything cheap anymore. There's nothing I can do about the crappy sound quality most software uses (and the fact that the DS itself just doesn't seem to be capable of producing TRULY high quality sound -- though I find that Ouendan is quite acceptable.) One annoyance though is that when I plug in a power source it adds a LOT of noise to the sound. Very poor design on Nintendo's part in this respect... Short of opening up my DS and performing mods on it though, I don't see myself doing much about this. However, I can surely do something about the other end of it however. I used to have a Black & Decker pocket inverter that also had a USB slot for powering USB devices on the go. I found that the battery power from this device was so clean that when I plugged my DS into it it would add no noise that I could hear (though I am a little dissapointed I might add that my motherboard and PSU aren't able to provide power a little closer to clean than this then. I can forgive that cheap little adapter Nintendo provides for charging the DS, but the PC requires higher standards... Apparently USB isn't terribly picky though, so they allow more leeway than is beneficial here.) Luckily I have a little PCB with an input and output jack originally intended to be for adding an external battery to the DS (which didn't work anyway) so adding on something like this without modifying the DS or the cables will be simplicity itself since I need only modify that.
As I understand it, the normal way to clean up an incoming power source is to add a capacitor to it. I know this smooths out voltage changes especially. Perhaps this might be enough though? Or is my biggest problem RFI or something? I tried looping a USB cable through a toroid for this, but it didn't make a difference, so I'm kind of inclined to think it's just an unsteady supply forcing it to take a bit of punishment.
My main question here would be just what sort of capacitor I should use if this is the best solution and do I need one for both sides or just one? I know you can usually use quite a range for this sort of task, but I don't want to break my DS at the moment, so I'd like to make sure I use something safe. Any suggestions here if a capacitor is the correct way to go? The DS is rated for 5.2V, but considering how much you see out there of things using USB to power it I'm guessing it has a pretty fair bit of tolerance since USB specs say devices should allow it to drift down to as low as 4.4V, so assuming it actually supports USB specs as these things should imply, a small drop should be ok.
As I understand it, the normal way to clean up an incoming power source is to add a capacitor to it. I know this smooths out voltage changes especially. Perhaps this might be enough though? Or is my biggest problem RFI or something? I tried looping a USB cable through a toroid for this, but it didn't make a difference, so I'm kind of inclined to think it's just an unsteady supply forcing it to take a bit of punishment.
My main question here would be just what sort of capacitor I should use if this is the best solution and do I need one for both sides or just one? I know you can usually use quite a range for this sort of task, but I don't want to break my DS at the moment, so I'd like to make sure I use something safe. Any suggestions here if a capacitor is the correct way to go? The DS is rated for 5.2V, but considering how much you see out there of things using USB to power it I'm guessing it has a pretty fair bit of tolerance since USB specs say devices should allow it to drift down to as low as 4.4V, so assuming it actually supports USB specs as these things should imply, a small drop should be ok.