![](\"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/wildcharger.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I lost the wall wart charger for my Sony Reader a couple of months ago, and a new one should be here in a few days. I don't love the Reader, as its USB transfer software unapologetically refuses to run on Windows 2000, but a guy in my business should have one, just as he should have a Kindle. In the meantime, I've been thinking a lot about wall warts, chargers, and one area of electronics that could really use a standard or two. The high road is something like the WildCharger<\/a> featured recently on Crave<\/a>, which is basically a pad that induces a trickle of electricity into whatever you place on it. Wotthell, that technology should be available built into computer desks, but it's not up to me.<\/p>\n I am very<\/i> sick of wall warts. I have a bin of them downstairs, probably thirty in all, and I doubt that any two source the same voltage. The barrel connectors are of wildly different diameters, and some of them put the positive conductor on the outside. A few, furthermore, are not even barrels but weird connectors of no conceivable justification.<\/p>\n Damn, I want a standard<\/i>.<\/p>\n Consider this as a possibility: A code for wall warts that could be printed on both the wart and the electrical device it's shipped with. The code would be human-readable and contain the essential parameters:<\/p>\n DC5-20-100-6P<\/p>\n The code begins with AC or DC. (There are AC wall warts, lord knows why.) The next number is the whole number voltage, separated from the fractional voltage by a dash. A second dash sets off the current sourcing capacity in milliamps. The code ends with the diameter of the barrel connector in millimeters, followed by either an N or a P, depending on the polarity of the inner conductor. For example, the code shown above would be for a DC wart sourcing 5.2V at 100 ma, with an 6mm barrel connector having positive on the inside.<\/p>\n There's no reason these things can't be like jelly-bean logic, and there's no reason why anyone should have to dig too hard or pay too big for a replacement wart. The IEEE should be doing something like this, but isn't.<\/p>\n My new Sony Reader charger will show up the day after tomorrow via DHL. And the day after that, I'm sure I'll find the original. At least then I'll have a spare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I lost the wall wart charger for my Sony Reader a couple of months ago, and a new one should be here in a few days. I don't love the Reader, as its USB transfer software unapologetically refuses to run on Windows 2000, but a guy in my business should have one, just as he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideasandanalysis","tag-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}