Ultra X-ULT500P Experience?

[KenOlson]

Have a Ultra X-ULT500P (500W PSU) that has never been used.

Decided to do some checking and found

"Disassembling an Ultra X-Connect X-ULT500P...I've never fixed an older Ultra before, so I was curious on what I can find about this unit. Ultra had copped a bad reputation for making miserable power units...The question is, are these units really garbage?...To conclude, on paper, everything looks fine although the numbers are a little too close to the theoretical maximum of the diode packs which is 3.3 x30 +5 x30 +12 x 30 = 602.4 W. Most modern PSU's have diode packs at almost double the rated output capacity. No worries if things are kept cool."

http://super-nade.blogspot.com/2007/...x-ult500p.html

Am interested in any experience with this PSU.

Thanks

Ken

[370forlife]

Re: Ultra X-ULT500P Experience?

As with all wintech units, you can expect high levels of ripple and not so good voltage regulation, but it will probably put out its rated wattage at 25C for a little while.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Ultra X-ULT500P Experience?

I have a 400W Ultra-X Wintech that was free after rebate. I took back the first sample because the top of its 1-sided circuit board had tons of flux all over it (definitely not varnish), there was a blob of solder in each of the two wires for the voltage selector switch, a couple of the ground wires were held to the board only by rosin (one pulled out), and the fan controller wouldn't send out enough voltage to make the fan spin if the temperature was too cool. I asked Ultra-X if the PSU had thermal overload protection, and someone from Wintech told them it didn't but that it should inherently start cutting back the voltage once the temp. reached 55C and shut down before anything started burning. I ended up swapping in the electronics from a 350W Enermax with a loud fan. The Enermax, despite having a lower power rating, had much bigger output chokes. Its transformer was the same size but ran at 70KHz, compared to 50KHz for the Ultra-X.

[KenOlson]

Re: Ultra X-ULT500P Experience?

Hi 370forlife,

"As with all wintech units, you can expect high levels of ripple and not so good voltage regulation"

Thanks for the tip!

Do you know of any free software to measure the PSU ripple and Voltage regulation?

Ken

[KenOlson]

Re: Ultra X-ULT500P Experience?

Hi larrymoencurly,

"...I ended up swapping in the electronics from a 350W Enermax with a loud fan. The Enermax, despite having a lower power rating, had much bigger output chokes. Its transformer was the same size but ran at 70KHz, compared to 50KHz for the Ultra-X."

Clarification: Did you do the electronics swap after Ultra-X failure?

Ken

[370forlife]

Re: Ultra X-ULT500P Experience?

Unfortunately ripple has to measured with an oscilloscope, which if you look closely you can get a good USB one for $150.

As for voltage regulation, you can measure that with a simple digital multimeter you can get for cheap at any hardware store, which is not only a good thing to have with computers but for general household maintenance as well.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Ultra X-ULT500P Experience?

Hi larrymoencurly,

"...I ended up swapping in the electronics from a 350W Enermax with a loud fan. The Enermax, despite having a lower power rating, had much bigger output chokes. Its transformer was the same size but ran at 70KHz, compared to 50KHz for the Ultra-X."

Clarification: Did you do the electronics swap after Ultra-X failure?

The Ultra-X is still OK (but modified so the fan would always start in the cold -- capacitor across the thermistor for full voltage to the fan at start) and is sitting in the old Enermax case, but I have to be careful using it because its mobo connector is a bit undersized, and with some mobos it can be plugged in backwards. Actually, the instruction manual encourages that:



Ditto for the floppy drive connector: