| I have an old 1040STfm running off an external supply. It's not hard -
it's held in with only two screws, and the power connector is easy to
decode with a voltmeter. The STe uses the same supply as the 1040.
STe's do get a little warm. My 1040STe has run with four megabytes of
RAM for months with no sign of problems. It is no warmer than it was
before the RAM upgrade, so I wouldn't worry until the plastic got soft
or the power supply broke.
If you do use an external supply, make sure you get 5 volts all the way
to the board, and are not losing a lot of it in the cable. Use 14 or
at least (most?) 18 guage wire. It's easy to drop a half a volt in 5
feet of wire when you are drawing an amp or so. The 1040 is
particularly sensitive to flicker in the video when the disk drive
kicks in. The longer the power supply wire, the more the screen jumps
when the floppy head is seeking.
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