Do I need to upgrade the PSU for my A600?

[Somelie]

Hello there,

After many years of emulation goodness, I decided to dig my very bog standard A600 out of the loft, give it a wash and brush up and upgrade the hell out of it. So far I’ve thrown in a Kickstart 3.1 ROM chip, a 4GB CF hard drive, and an A604 RAM expansion. In addition, I have an Indivision ECS Scandoubler sitting on my desk awaiting installation, and I also wish to purchase and ACA-620EC accelerator.

However, last night it occurred to me that the standard A600 PSU that I’m currently using might not provide enough juice once all of this is installed. So the questions I have are:

1. Do I need to upgrade my PSU to something a tad more powerful?
2. If so, what do I need to get hold of?

Any advice would be much appreciated as I’m very much enjoying playing about with my A600 again after about fifteen years, and have no wish to see it explode…

 

[roy_bates]

ive got a a600 power supply here,it says its 3.0 amps on the 5 volts rail so it might be ok.

or you could try to get a a500 supply thats 4.3 amps (heavy) or 4.5 amps (light) on the 5 volt rail or get a atx converted supply (overkill for this machine)

 

[Peter]

PM me if you are interested in buying a stronger Amiga power supply - I have a couple more I am going to be selling...

 

[fitzsteve]

IMHO if you're going to put this expensive kit inside the A600 don't skimp on the PSU, get a converted ATX from Amigakit, (or similar) you wont regret it!

I've spoken to many people who've tried to run upgraded Amiga's (especially with ACA's) on stock PSU's just to have issues, crashing etc, that fixed once upgraded to a decent PSU.

The A500 ones will normally do if you can find a decent one but remember they're all over 20 years old!

 

[Powerpie5000]

Not sure if i'd trust any original old & used Amiga PSU with a modified/upgraded Amiga. I doubt they can even reach their original claimed outputs due to capacitor aging etc. Would you trust a 20 year old PSU with a PC, Mac or anything else for that matter?

If your forking out for upgrades then it's best to get a modified ATX PSU (new) as fitsteve recommends above .

 

[Somelie]

Many thanks for the replies.

I’m very much liking the sound of “it might be ok” as I’m spending a fortune on various bit and pieces and didn’t take this into account. However, with what’s been said here and what I’ve read on the ‘net this afternoon, it looks like I’ll be shelling out for another piece of kit!

Unfortunately, new power supplies seem to be out of stock at Amigakit – as are the ACA-620s – so it looks like I’ll have to be patient until I upgrade further…