Good 3rd Party Power Supply for CF-29

I think this is one of the best most informative forums I've ever found on any subject.

Since I'm not nearly as technical as a lot of you guys, I don't have a lot to contribute; however, I found something out that will make you smile and maybe save you a little change.

I work in the technical industry for a company that does a lot of large scale 802.11x deployments for fortune 500 companies. We have quite a bit of old equipment laying around.

Today I left the power supply for my CF-29 at home and was trying to find a suitable power supply out of the myrid we have here. I struck gold.

Symbol Technologies (now owned by Motorola) makes a power supply that puts out 15v - 5A.

The details are as follows

Brand: Symbol
Model: SYM04-2
Part # 50-14001-008 / 50-14001-008R
MFG P# 506-0751-M01
Description AC Adapter
AC Input 100-120V/200-240V~
50-60Hz 3.0A/1.5A
DC Output +15V 5.0A

That is all well and good but how do you get the power to your TB?

Symbol Part # 50-16002-011 has a barrel tip on it that fits the TB perfectly.

My CF-29 is running great off of this power supply as I type.

The supply is built like a tank with a heavy duty aluminum housing and vent ports. It looks a lot like a Lind.

You can pick both the power supply and the correct cable up on eBay. I checked before I wrote this post and there are quite a few SYM04-2's available in the $20-30 price range.

Be sure to get the SYM04-2 model. The SYM04-1 model puts out 12v 9a.

If anyone desires, I can take some pictures of the product labels and post them.

 

Good find
Yes 15v will work great
They do look like the Lind type adapters and are rugged looking


Alex

 

LOL There is a jerk on there that has two for $29.99 but with $75 shipping!!
Thanks Chromedome, I think they should be better than the generic Chinese ones, even though they come with a plug on both ends.

 

They are built like a tank. Weighs a couple of pounds.

The intended use for these is to power a multi battery charging bay. Symbol will utilize the same Power Supply for various purposes so almost all of their industrial supplies have changeable cables. I have seveal cables with different style ends on them. One of them is a big green metal screw in connector that looks military to me.

 

Does it have a built in fan, or are the perforations just for air circulation?

 

The Sym04-2 that I am holding in my hand does not have a fan. The Sym04-1 does have a fan. I have another Sym04-2 at the office that I will check for a fan tomorrow.

Would the 12v 9a power supply work on a TB?

 

No
They need 15v or16v


Alex

 

Well, I am no expert on Toughbooks so I don't know the operating range they have but I have seen some of the gurus mention between 15 and 16 volts I think. So, if the product needs a potential difference (voltage) of around 15V at least, I don’t think a 12 V power supply will do it any good. A good analogy is the car battery, which is 12 volts. For current to flow into it, one needs a potential difference higher than 12 volts (preferably 13.5 volts), so that is what the alternator has to supply. The amount of current (amps) depends upon the demand placed on the battery (system) and the output capacity of the alternator.

 

Keep in mind the T3x and T4x IBM Thinkpad adapters are good too!

The barrel connector is 2.5mm x 5.5mm.

 

Any of you guys have a good alternative to Lind DC adaptors? They are rarer than hens' teeth in the UK - $90 plus, when you can find a new one.

 

Kensington is pretty good.. I have the older version of this...
http://ca.kensington.com/html/14375.html

... and just use the IBM Thinkpad connector on the Toughbook.

 

I buy THESE off of ebay to replace the stock adapter... They work perfectly 100% of the time. That is NOT the case with THESE that had a failure rate of about 30%. My second order from them I had 4 out of 5 BAD adapters. They replaced them and all seemed okay. I switched to their other adapter after that... But since then I have had customers call me about their bad BriteOn AC adapter.... They are JUNK! The guy was real nice to me when I had the 4 out of 5 being bad... Very apologetic... When I call then 45 days later (After feedback time expired) I was basically told to go pound sand because they sell a "Quality Product".... Yeah right.... And I have the winning Lotto numbers in my wallet! Stay away from BriteOn Power adapters!

I have a Kensington Multi Adapter... Car, truck, plane... Whatever... It has never let me down.... But then I don't use it every day.