Matching power adapters to equipment

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Clearly I have no idea how this stuff works.

I started tidying up all my cast off pumps and lights and who knows what else and found myself with a bucket of devices and a bucket of power adapters. Any tricks to knowing which go with which when you aren't lucky enough to have matching brand names on each?

I thought it might be as simple as just matching numbers on each device (volts, watts, amps) but looks like it's not so straight forward. The pump for my Tunze skimmer is DC but the adapter that I'm sure goes with it says AC (probably something to do with the controller that sits between the two but really no idea).

Then I have a pump which I believe to be DC but has no markings on it whatsoever. Its adapter is missing for sure and I have no idea how to find a match for it.

Needless to say once I straighten all this out I won't let this spaghetti mess happen again!

 

[blaxsun]

Start looking up each of the products online. Manufacturers usually have a picture of the entire contents for each device. If you can narrow a few down that should make it easier to figure out the rest.

 

[Malcontent]

The devices often have polarity, current, and voltage on them. If not, look in the manual or something. The adapters have all that information as well. It shouldn't be too hard to match them all up. You can also look for unboxing videos if you narrow it down to several adapters that are exactly the same and differ only in appearance.