External hard drive case with bad supply

[goodpsusearch]

The hard drive case brand is VIPOWER, it was bought at 2004 and it has gone bad less than 3 years later.

12V voltage is crazy. It goes from 11.3 to 13.5 and tries constantly to reach 12.14V and stay there, but few times it manages to do that.

5V seems to be ok.

Opening that psu today with tech guy's help, no bad caps were found in it..

He said the transformer is bad and nothing can be done with that...

Photos attached

[kc8adu]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

recap it and look for bad solder joints.esp replace the small lytic toward the center of the board.if the transformer were bad it would not run.

[i4004]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

>no bad caps were found in it..

you mean no bulging caps?
they still may be bad...did you measure their esr?
if not, then you don't know if they're bad or not.

>He said the transformer is bad

that's something those that don't know say...hehe...

[goodpsusearch]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

I don't know what's wrong there, all I know is this thing was not even plugged in most of the time.

The hard drive in the external case was used for complete system back up 2-4 times per year and then was put in a shelve...

I was testing it right now. When powering on, 12V goes ~13.5V, then drops to ~11.2V and then slowly goes up to ~12.20 and does not fluctuate at all.

Sometimes it stays at that voltage, steady as a rock, more often thought, while steady at 12.2, suddenly polymeter shows for example 12.8 and then again 12.2. Then it happens again and again with different peak values and goes together with hard drive motor sound going higher for a sec and then back to normal.

I find it hard to blame the caps for that.

Before opening psu, I have tried adding caps at the outputs (5V and 12V) but it did not make a difference.

Confused...

[i4004]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

crappy caps can go bad even when unused...
i had great trouble finding decent lytics here, everything is old stock, esr goes pretty damn high...even though they were never used...

and i didn't really find any, i should be ordering panasonic from rs in the future, like you.

in this case it's really hard to say if changing lytics would help it, or is there another underlying cause of the problem.

if caps are ok(which, again, we don't know untill their esr is measured), then something is messing the feedback circuit (ie regulation that tells the primary section when to stop increasing the voltage, so to say), and kc's suggestion about checking for bad solder joints is good....you should first resolder everything...

either way, you really should get esr meter if you're really interested in such things.

>Then it happens again and again with different peak values and goes together with hard drive motor sound going higher for a sec and then back to normal.

uhu, better not to connect it to that hdd anymore....chances are you'll mess the hdd if it stays that way...

if you can't fix it, think about using some pc psu to power it...hehe...yes, it'll be bigger than hdd tray itself, but it'll last MUCH longer, if it's a decent psu...

which reminds me, i too should adapt cables to be able to hook my hdd trays( i have 3) to my old enermax psu, as it's currently doing nothing usefull...

and yes, these small supplies really are rarely seen crap...

[goodpsusearch]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

It's a sacrificial hdd so it's ok (has its own problems too :P ).

What do you mean in your last sentence?

I already ordered a new external hdd case

[i4004]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

the external case is ok, but its supply is not, and in my last sentence i said these external cases usually have crappy supplies....ie bad quality, so the chances are new one will have a bad supply too...

that's why i said (in the line just above) i should attach decent pc psu to it(enermax pc psu i have), instead of these crapppy supplies that come with them....
then you just connect 5 and 12V from pc psu molex to wires of the external hdd case power connector...

and then you can power all 3 with one pc psu....hehe...no need to have 3 adaptors for each hdd external case like i now have...

[goodpsusearch]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

This is f*** incredible! The psu was completely ok. The CASE was the reason of the problems!

I tested the VIPOWER HDD CASE with the psu that came with RAIDMAX ICYBOX today and it didn't work good. Voltage was doing the same as with the original psu connected to it.

Firstly I thought the new psu was crap too and I got depressed... But when connected either the new or the old psu to ICY BOX, it worked flawlessly with any hard drive I put on it.

So, to make it easy, I now have,
2X 5V & 12V OUTPUT POWER SUPPLIES:
1)PRIVER
2)FLYPOWER
and
2X external HDD CASES:
A)VIPOWER
B)ICYBOX

1)PRIVER --> A)VIPOWER --> NOT WORKING
2)FLYPOWER --> A)VIPOWER --> NOT WORKING

1)PRIVER --> B)ICYBOX --> WORKING
2)FLYPOWER --> B)ICYBOX --> WORKING

Who could have imagined this? And why this thing failed at first place?

[i4004]

Re: External hard drive case with bad supply

just look at the "nice" soldering on that pcb.

but yes, it is kinda weird that supply is ok, and device itself is making problems.

troubleshooting can't be too easy as measuring will just show whole circuit pumping voltage when it happens...

i would resolder it first, then see if i can detect any component overheating, if resoldering doesn't help.
(i don't see how would i tackle if from purely electrical perspective of just measuring voltages etc.)