Big Ass Power Brick

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

I've had this power brick around for a while but never got around to posting it. Came from a Clevo laptop. 20 volts, 5 amps. That's 100W. Certainly not your average laptop brick.

It has a solid aluminum chassis (that a lot of stuff is screwed or clamped to). It has a copper top. It has a "Be careful! May become hot" sticker. It even has thermal pads for the transformers. Heck, even the line filter gets a pad! All Rubycon caps. It works correctly, but it hisses quite angrily. Someone didn't get their control theory right. But it looks like a decent candidate for an adjustable supply.

There are three ferrite cores. The last one next to the output connector isn't a transformer, it's the output inductor, the one in the middle is the main switching transformer, but i'm not yet sure what the first one does. Could be an Active PFC stage. For a 100W supply, that's crazy.

The 9v battery in the first pic is to make you an idea of the scale. More pics coming tomorrow... as a sneak peek i will tell you this uses 2x MBR20100CT in parallel for output rectifiers. Overkill. Me like.

Edit: The hissing stops once it is loaded up with 1A or more. On lower loads it hisses and whines to various degrees. Well, it was made to power a beefy laptop after all. Anyway. Does 5.9A without shutting down, voltage is in spec at exactly 20.0v, no load voltage = 20.8v. Haven't checked ripple levels yet, will do tomorrow. And we'll see how much more it can deliver.

[Scenic]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

ha!
got something similar, but partway disassembled because of a infineon "coolMOS" 20N60C3 which failed and overheated far enough that the metal tab of the TO220 package turned purple

JVC PSU brick rated for 24V 5A (120W). All caps are nichicon.
main filter cap is a 420V 180uF beast, output caps are 3x KZE 35V 560uF
primary side heatsink and the output wire are missing in those pics. still have them though.

http://bambooz.pytalhost.net/badcaps/jvc_psu/1.jpg
http://bambooz.pytalhost.net/badcaps/jvc_psu/2.jpg
http://bambooz.pytalhost.net/badcaps/jvc_psu/3.jpg
http://bambooz.pytalhost.net/badcaps/jvc_psu/4.jpg

Came from a Clevo laptop. 20 volts, 5 amps. That's 100W. Certainly not your average laptop brick.

i bet this came from one of their Pentium 4 junkers or something

[370forlife]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

My friend has a new alienware laptop with a core2quad and 2 GTX260M's. It has a 180W Flextronics brick. Thing is huge and weighs a good 3-4lbs.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

i bet this came from one of their Pentium 4 junkers or something

Yup... but it was a Celery D with a SiS video chipset. Not sure how THAT would need 100W. Btw, did a quick check of the ripple output. 100mV @ 1A, 120mV @ 5.9A, this thing is fairly steady. Sure, those numbers aren't stellar, but this is 20v not 12v, the output caps are just 2x 1000uF 25v IIRC, and there's no pi filter. Given those parameters this is a pretty good result. And altho this brick is fairly cramped, there's room for bigger output caps.

My friend has a new alienware laptop with a core2quad and 2 GTX260M's. It has a 180W Flextronics brick. Thing is huge and weighs a good 3-4lbs.

What screen size is the laptop? Unless it's at least 18"... they either reinvented physics or the thing runs past the boiling point of water.

[370forlife]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

It has a 17" screen I do believe. It has this array of 4 40x40mm fans in the back that cool the GPU's and a real screamer that cools the cpu. It still gets hot, hot enough to make it uncomfortable to keep on your lap. It runs off the GPUs when plugged in, when on battery it defaults to the intel integraded graphics but can be forced to to use the GTX's with heavily decreased battery life.

[Scenic]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

i'm kinda wondering why they even bothered to put a battery in it with those specs

[370forlife]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

It has a 17" screen I do believe. It has this array of 4 40x40mm fans in the back that cool the GPU's and a real screamer that cools the cpu. It still gets hot, hot enough to make it uncomfortable to keep on your lap. It runs off the GPUs when plugged in, when on battery it defaults to the intel integraded graphics but can be forced to to use the GTX's with heavily decreased battery life.

This is wrong. I was thinking of my machine tool teacher's dell precision laptop.

This laptop is a Alienware M17X with a QX9300 for a processor. The GPU's are cooled by normal blower fans like you would see on a laptop usually. Lots of fins though.

[Krankshaft]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

Alienware went down the tubes the instant Dell bought them they used to be great rigs.

20 volts is a bit odd seeing as nothing on the mobo needs it providing 12 volts would have made more sense. Less heat from the on board regulators.

I'm curious as to who that PSU was made for based on the pics it's a top quality unit.

You certainly won't find build quality like that fresh off the boat from China.

[delaware74b]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

It probable needs the 20 volts to charge the battery pack. Heck, my little Acer Aspire 1410 netbook use 19 volts, most of which is the charging circuits.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Big Ass Power Brick

I'm curious as to who that PSU was made for based on the pics it's a top quality unit.

You certainly won't find build quality like that fresh off the boat from China.

Well, the lappy's keyboard was in Japanese. I guess the Japs are quite strict on what they import.