Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

[pdqwik]

Greetings all,
This power supply went up on me several years ago. I saved it to try to repair it for the experience and now I can use it for a machine that has a bad power supply. I recently tested with a Rosewill RTK-PST and it tested bad. I took the cover off and didn't really see anything wrong until I removed the screws and peeked under the board. There was some dust and a small piece of card board. Over by the primary caps there was some obvious electrolyte leakage. I cleaned it up and retested and it passed this time. I would like to replace the primary caps 470uf 200volt and 2 small caps in the front 470uf 10volt. Should I go with original specs or is there something better?




or am I wasting my time? TIA

[ben7]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Powmax Demon? Sounds so hilarious!

Powmax psu's are the worst ever, I sugguest you get a different one and trash this one. There is a reason why it is so cheap ... poor quality, and it will likely destroy the whole computer when it fails.

[Pentium4]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

JEE caps are probably the worst brand alongside Rulycon. I recently got an old CompUSA PSU that was made in 2002 and had never been used and one of the JEE caps was bulging. There have also been some old PSU's I've seen with JEE caps and about 90% of them were bulging or out of spec.

Regardless, Powmax makes junk and normally I would say improve it (Even if it was an Allied, etc.) but I think it would be worth getting a different PSU. It might have a couple parts worth scavenging, like a 30A schottky on the 5V rail and (if you're lucky) PI coils on the output. Can you post some more pictures of it, from above?

[pdqwik]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Yes I'll be all to happy to post some more pics tomorrow. Didn't understand everything you said but willing to learn.
Apparently the ps stopped working because the electrolyte caused a short on the board after a little cleaning it tested good. I was hoping to put this back in service because it's the only extra bad one I have with sata. I thought some new caps might make it spiffy again since they are all obviously leaking.

[Pentium4]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Unfortunately the ripple coming out of that thing is most likely severely shortening the life of the connected hardware. I would gladly send you some molex to SATA converters, I probably have over 100 of them sitting around.

It also looks like that (can't tell from the angle) switching transistor or 5VSB transistor on the primary heatsink (to the left of the left JEE cap in the first picture) is really discolored or burned, perhaps that's why it isn't working as well as the failed caps, it's probably a wimpy 13007 or 3A standby transistor

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

JonnyGuru.com once tested a 500-550W Powmax Assassin that looks sort of like that Demon. The first blew out at 277W, and the next two either blew out or shut down at about the same power level.

[DJduck]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Everybody here is right. There is no reason to waste money on this piece of shit.

[pdqwik]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Yes as a matter of fact I did inspect that not knowing what it was. Figured it was heat related but that it was just the clip holding it to the heat sink. Good eye P4.

[cheapie]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

I was hoping to put this back in service because it's the only extra bad one I have with sata.

Just chop some SATA connectors off of it and splice them onto a good supply. They fit nicely in place of a Molex (black to black, red to red, yellow to yellow). You don't even need to connect the orange wire, as only a certain set of 1.8" SSDs are even known to use it. I did this once before with an old Astec. I had a Dynex that was on its way out, so I put the SATA and ATX12V connectors from it onto the Astec. I don't think it liked the crossload towards 12V (it was an old 5V-heavy unit from 1999, and may have even been overloaded on the 12V), but it worked until I was able to get a new Seasonic.

For reference, if you want to do any connector modding, here are the different wire colors:

Yellow - +12V (on multi-rail supplies, some of these may have colored stripes to indicate rail assignment)

Red - +5V

Orange - +3.3V

Brown (If present) - +3.3V sense (should be connected to an orange wire, used to sense voltage at the ATX connector)

Blue - -12V

White (no longer part of the ATX spec, but some older supplies still have it) - -5V

Purple - +5VSB "standby" (has 5V all the time, even when the computer is off)

Green - /PS_ON (connect to ground to turn supply on)

Gray - PWR_OK (indicates supply has finished starting and voltages should be stable)

[kc8adu]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

only service that thing is good for is a rifle target.
even the sata drive power leads are likely subpar.
you might get away with it if you dont load it heavy with 10k drives,ect.
some of those leads are 28ga.if it were mine...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

JonnyGuru.com once tested a 500-550W Powmax Assassin that looks sort of like that Demon. The first blew out at 277W, and the next two either blew out or shut down at about the same power level.

Another one of those divided-by-2 PSUs!

[ratdude747]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

only service that thing is good for is a rifle target.
even the sata drive power leads are likely subpar.
you might get away with it if you dont load it heavy with 10k drives,ect.
some of those leads are 28ga.if it were mine...

Or sledgehammer bait...

[c_hegge]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Or tossing in a fire and watching the caps explode

[lti]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

JonnyGuru.com once tested a 500-550W Powmax Assassin that looks sort of like that Demon. The first blew out at 277W, and the next two either blew out or shut down at about the same power level.

He tested the Demon too.
http://www.slcentral.com/powmax-demon-580w-psu/

[pdqwik]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Here's some more pictures Pentium4

You all have ragged my power supply so hard I'm almost afraid to try to do anything with it. I don't believe it ever harmed any equipment. I had it running an Asus A8V which I still have in my spare room doing web surfing and basic printer duties. I replaced the Demon with an Antec BP500U and it just keeps on chugging. So I'm still looking for advise as to what to change out. I know the 4 capacitors are bad.

[Pentium4]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Your computer will be much happier with the Antec. I was expecting a little worse...but it still isn't good. If you plan on using it in a low end system, I would replace 100% of the JEE caps, even the small ones as they dry out. The heat sinks are actually decent for a Leadman... I would also remove the minimum load resistors on the output rails. It probably has a crappy Powmax fan which are annoyingly loud and have insufficient oil in the bearing, I would replace that. You can use any old 80mm fan.

I'm also curious to know the specs of the silicon, aka all the parts connected to the 2 big heat sinks, you would want to replace any fast recovery rectifiers with schottky rectifiers. I have had good look doing this in old PSU's.

Also recommend replacing those fake Y caps with certified Y caps, they look like regular ceramic discs. The ones I am talking about are located at the bottom right of the last picture next to the Line and Neutral wires

All that being said, I wouldn't use it in a computer that needs more than 150W if you want it to be in spec and not blow up and start a fire

[pdqwik]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Errr, I'm going to have to do some reading I see. Shottky's look the same as fast recovery rectifiers to me. Wiki calls them both diodes and I have no idea what a real y cap looks like let alone a fake one. This is going to be good fun. Thanks for the info P4 and everyone else for your critique I knew it was a piece of shite and appreciate the humor.

[Pentium4]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

It is indeed a crappy power supply but for the sake of learning, experimenting, and practicing on, it is perfect

[pdqwik]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Errr, I'm going to have to do some reading I see. Shottky's look the same as fast recovery rectifiers to me. Wiki calls them both diodes and I have no idea what a real y cap looks like let alone a fake one. This is going to be good fun. Thanks for the info P4 and everyone else for your critique I knew it was a piece of shite and appreciate the humor.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Powmax Demon 480w Power Supply

Real Y caps are blue and have safety markings on them. The reason this is stressed is because safety certified Y caps never fail short. Cheap ceramics almost always fail short when they do fail - which could create a potentially lethal situation as they are connected between neutral and earth, live and earth. If the computer you plugged the outlet in isn't earthed properly, the cap connecting to the live fails short, and you happen to touch the case, you'll be touching the live line of your mains outlet. That'll hurt.

I don't recommend removing the minimum load resistors, they are there for a reason. You may, however, replace them with higher wattage ones with flying leads (there won't be room for bigger ones), so that they don't get that crazy hot and don't harm the caps.