A question about amperage

[madlabs]

Originally Posted by decojoe67

Thank you. Okay, but taking it one more step, does the 3.0 amp rating of the ARBE III battery eliminator have any importance to the operation of the radio? What would be the advantage/disadvantage if it was say 12 or even 20 amps? Just so curious to know and understand what that amp value in the eliminator means to the user.

If your radio needs three amp and your power supply can provide 3 amps it will work but the power supply will run hot and most likely die an early death. A wiser rating would be to find a power supply that can provide at least 5 amps. The radio will run the same but the power supply will run cooler. If you had a 20 amp power supply the radio will run the same and the power supply would be essentially stone cold.

So the upshot: Once your power supply's rating exceeds the radio draw by around 20% there is no benefit to using a larger power supply. No harm will be done but your power supply will be under employed. :-)