Power Shield Buzzing Loudly

Hardware
1

I have the Power Shield for my particle photon. I plugged in a 16v power supply to it and it was making a loud buzzing sound. Is this normal or is my power shield defective. If it is normal would using less power stop the buzzing? thanks.

2

@affarram, are you supplying a clean (well filtered) 16VDC with enough current to supply the Photon and other hardware you may have?

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3

The Photon powers up and runs. I only have three reed switch door sensors attached to it. I’m not sure what well filtered means. I have a 16VDC power supply that is plugged into an outlet in my basement and it connects via a long wire to the power shield which is located maybe 30ft away.

4

@affarram, the long wires are an issue. How thick are those wires? How much current can the power supply provide?

You may want to add a 470-1000uF plus a 0.1uF (in parallel) capacitor at the end of those wires, near the photon/power shield to filter any noise from having such wires. Some power supply don’t do well with long wires.

5

@peekay123 Im using the same power supply that was used with my old ADT system. The wire is a pretty thick gauge. As for the current, Im not sure, it doesn’t state the current, only the voltage. Ill have to find my meter to check it.

6

@affarram, your old ADT system probably had filtering onboard. Was the ADT unit closer to the power supply? If possible, bring the power supply closer to your photon. If not, add the capacitors I mentioned. Perhaps @bko or @ScruffR have some other suggestions.

7

Maybe this is a case where a picture is worth a thousand words?

Can you post a picture of the 16V supply? Any labels on it?

I think @peekay123 and I suspect that your power supply is either AC or low-quality DC.

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8

Does the power supply look like this?

image.jpg782×794 79 KB

If so then its probably has these specs and it’s 16v AC.

image.png728×326 14.9 KB

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9

@RWB, nice catch! No wonder the power shield is buzzing!!

@affarram, you need to get a proper DC power supply. If you can’t avoid the long wires then I suggest a 12VDC, 500ma to 1A power supply and I still recommend the filtering capacitors near the Photon/Power shield. If the wires are less than 3 feet, you can do without. In fact, at that point, you could use a good 5v phone charger with a good USB cable.

2 Likes
10

Yes that is exactly what i have!

11

Thanks guys! @peekay123 Im going to get a different power supply

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