ARpiCADE - not enough current load for meanwell RT125A?

Installing ARpiCADE for the first time? Having issues? Check here first for solutions and tips on installing.

Moderator: dee2eR

Post Reply
Daedilis
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:01 am

ARpiCADE - not enough current load for meanwell RT125A?

Post by Daedilis » Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:13 am

Finally getting my old Area 51 cabinet working. Replaced the triple output DC supply that was (+5/+12/-5) in the cabinet when I got it with a new meanwell RT-125A. However, this iteration of the RT125A has a minimum load of 2A on the +5v line. Otherwise the Overload protection circuit kicks in when the output voltage floats above 5.75v on the +5v rail.

This has the unit flicking on and off on 1 sec intervals.

The CRT/speaks/etc all work. I played Area51 on it for about an hour after swapping in the RT-125A today.

Is there anything I need to check/change on the ARpiCADE unit or in the boot.conf to fix this?

I don't have a 15W resistor (5v/2A=2.5ohms/5V*2A = 10W) to put across +5v/common to cause it to pull a 2A minimum load.

I'm definitely looking for suggestions!

Daedilis
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:01 am

Re: ARpiCADE - not enough current load for meanwell RT125A?

Post by Daedilis » Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:03 pm

I ordered a 1M strand of 60 leds/M WS2811 RGB led strip today. I'll put that in parallel with the jamma harness with an esp8266 to drive it and see if I can draw enough current to keep the power supply on. If it works, I'll probably look at replacing the marquee bulbs with the LED strip.

dee2eR
Inventor
Inventor
Posts: 1857
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:07 pm

Re: ARpiCADE - not enough current load for meanwell RT125A?

Post by dee2eR » Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:03 am

Sorry for the slow reply.

I haven't encountered an arcade power supply with a low current shut down before. I'm guessing you would have a similar issue with a 60in1 or other ARM based multiboards as they use a tiny amount of power too. That Meanwell is a nice supply, looks like it's probably better quality than the average JAMMA power supply, but maybe just intended for other things.

Hopefully your LED light idea gets it all going. Please report your results.

Daedilis
Community Member
Community Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:01 am

Re: ARpiCADE - not enough current load for meanwell RT125A?

Post by Daedilis » Sat Nov 20, 2021 11:27 pm

So... I gave up on the LED's (for now). I got them working with a nodeMCU, but it wasn't pulling nearly enough current at only 241mA to get me over the 2A minimum load on the meanwell power supply.

However, I reached out to TRC Electronics, where I bought the power supply, and mentioned that there was a manufacturing change in July, 2019 to remove that 2A minimum load restriction and sent the link to the change notification from Meanwell.

They reviewed it, said "Sorry, we'll order a new one and send it to you." They did that at no charge to me!

I've got the new power supply in the cabinet and the rpi 3b+ with the ArPicade Jamma adapter is working. Now I need to identify the connector type for player 1 and player 2 buttons so I can make an adapter to wire up the buttons and joysticks.

Do you see any issues with putting the rpi3b+ on my wifi network and doing an nfs mount of my NAS to add space (4TB)? I also want to bind a couple of bluetooth controllers (PS3 and/or xbox) to it for some of the console games. Do you foresee any issues there?

sophiaabigail
Observer
Observer
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:09 pm
Location: mexico
Contact:

Re: ARpiCADE - not enough current load for meanwell RT125A?

Post by sophiaabigail » Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:12 pm

Finally getting my old Area 51 cabinet working. Replaced the triple output DC supply that was MEAN WELL is one of the world's few standard power 192.168.l.254 supply mainly professional manufacturers, covering 0.5 to 25600W products are widely used ...Mean-well changed the design in a number of their multi voltage power supplies, so that the minimum load is not required anymore.

Post Reply