A Non-Pedular Question

[soupbone]

I don't know if this is the right place in the forum for this question or not.I was at my local electronic parts store,and I bought a early-eighties?Tape Recorder.It has a adapter plug on the side,but it takes a 6v adapter ac adapter.I have an old Radio Shack 9v adapter from an old answering machine.Would this work?or is that too much voltage and fry it?I'm going to go old school to record my ideas.Who needs pro-tools right?

[Seljer]

If it says AC  it probably wants AC. Higher voltage probably won't bode well for it either.


The only way to be sure if you can get away with anything else is to take it apart and analyze the power supply. If its going through a bridge rectifier and is it then regulated to regular DC? are they using a half wave rectifier to got a bipolar supply? are there any regulators? zener diodes? what voltage rating are the capacitors?

[Mark Hammer]

Is this a cassette or open-reel type?

[thelonious]

And while we're bombarding you with clarifying questions, when you said "ac adapter", did you mean "adapter that plugs into AC power but results in 6V DC", or "adapter that spits out 6V AC"?

[soupbone]

And while we're bombarding you with clarifying questions, when you said "ac adapter", did you mean "adapter that plugs into AC power but results in 6V DC", or "adapter that spits out 6V AC"?

I don't know why,but I swore it was ac.I just looked at again,and it says,"DC 6v IN"!It's a Emerson Cassette Recorder model# cr46.

[guitarpedalparts]

It very well could fry it, but you never know until you try. 

You can always go the hacker route and build a little step-down circuit regulated to 6V for your 9V adapter.

[Seljer]

In that case just slap a LM317 on whatever supply you have and be sure to get the polarity right on the plug!

[MrStab]

about a year ago at the charity music shop i volunteer at, we sold an early 80s Walkman on eBay for at least £270 (GBP), iirc.

so yeah, you might not wanna risk it. lol

[PRR]

A 4-pack of C-cells will fill the belly of the beast for MANY-MANY "ideas". And is the right voltage and polarity.

I do not remember the cheap cassette recorders as battery-hogs, and never had or used a wall-adaptor.