Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

[Fizzycapola2]

I decided to invalidate my warranty, don't know why I did this still kicking
myself, curiosity to find bad caps inside got the better of me I guess. Anyway
there wasn't much to see with the big heatsink covering nearly everything.

Just a peek. Not much useful knowledge to be gained, but I did invalidate my warranty for this lol.









Apologies for picture quality, I've spent thousands of dollars on cameras
not spending anymore. (admitedly last purchase was 5 years ago )

[willawake]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

nice panasonic primaries the rest are fuhjyyu

[MixMasta]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

I thought Tagan was a good brand?

[gonzo0815]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

Not from my point of view.
Tagan is a hot air brand like Antec. They do well in tests and reviews of low skilled hardware mags, or may be theyre good at the start. The rest is and always was marketing nothing else.

But obivousely Tagan has archived to have some fanboys around them, thus if you say it loud that theyre crap as for using crapiest caps known on earth, you just got flamed in many forums from ...err probably people wich can`t judge the quality of an psu.

But i know fore shure, that there is a wide margin in selling this psu`s, may be this is the answer why theyr pushed from that many shops that far.

To be honest, except from the caps, most Tagan units would be ok, but on some series there where other isssues.
In the first real THG test, some TAgan PSu`s failed to deliver the stated output. They burnt.
Reason was the bad thermal contact of a Transistor to it`s heasink. ANother issue where some transformers, wich have some failures in the isolation layer.

Any way, i would prefer to buy a PSu from the "real" manufacturer, like Seasonic and FSP.
Shure, even they are using badcaps from time to time, but most retail PSu`s from either of the both have not failed on me.

[Brian C]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

Not from my point of view.
Tagan is a hot air brand like Antec. They do well in tests and reviews of low skilled hardware mags, or may be theyre good at the start. The rest is and always was marketing nothing else.

But obivousely Tagan has archived to have some fanboys around them, thus if you say it loud that theyre crap as for using crapiest caps known on earth, you just got flamed in many forums from ...err probably people wich can`t judge the quality of an psu.

But i know fore shure, that there is a wide margin in selling this psu`s, may be this is the answer why theyr pushed from that many shops that far.

To be honest, except from the caps, most Tagan units would be ok, but on some series there where other isssues.
In the first real THG test, some TAgan PSu`s failed to deliver the stated output. They burnt.
Reason was the bad thermal contact of a Transistor to it`s heasink. ANother issue where some transformers, wich have some failures in the isolation layer.

Any way, i would prefer to buy a PSu from the "real" manufacturer, like Seasonic and FSP.
Shure, even they are using badcaps from time to time, but most retail PSu`s from either of the both have not failed on me.

Failures in transformer isolation layer ? i thught they should have done the high potential (hi-pot) and insulation test for all their products. May i know where can i get the info on PSU THG test ?

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

Were the transformer failures actual electrical failures? Or did the construction fail to comply with ISO 950 (or other applicable safety standard)?

[linuxguru]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

Tagan is not bad, just like Hi-Pro - simply upgrade the caps and be happy.

[Fizzycapola]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

I'd say it's a bit harsh to say it's crap inside.

Given it's not ALL perfection.

It's nearly perfection 50% of the inside is heatsink all the rest is components not even a centimetre cubic centimetre of free space, it's packed like I've never seen before. Primaries are good.

This is one of the few PSU under 600w with 30A 12v rail, a good PSU when used beyond it's limit just burns out whatever caps it has (I imagine), this one has never failed despite 2 years at maximum load, Globalwin 680w blew out after 2 weeks under the same environment, so did Antec 350w (probably overloaded), multi award winning PSU of the year all over the net.

Only parts that aren't any good (although working perfectly still after 2 years of heavy usage) are replaceable for under $5 and a few minutes soldering.



Sorry to sound like some sad guy defending his purchase lol.

But I have PSU that cost the same as this Tagan that deliver half the power rely heavily on fan cooling to work properly and have Fuhyyu primary caps to boot, now maybe Tagan aren't that bad lol!!!

[gonzo0815]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

Well, i have not said Tagan is crap, the other things are not bad, but where is the benefit having expensive stuff like big heatsinks, epoxy PCP`s etc. when using the F word caps?.

Fore the same amount i would prefer a Seasonic S12, but the UCC caped version.
I do not know, what the problem with the transformers are exactly, but sometimes they loosen their isolation and short. IMHO not only Tagan`s where afekted.

A good PSU will never burn, as it should have WORKING overload protection, and in fact most PSU do have this.
The problem with the Tagan was the heattransfer from the powertransitor. The whole PSu was in fact capable in delivering the stated power, thus the OVP was set to it.
Then either the screws has ben losend during transport or they have not used the right torque.
So at least they have not fooled the customer by purpose.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

The test i refered was the first real THG (=Toms hardware guide) PSu test, wich was done with elektronic loads to push the psu`s to their stated output.
Since then, they continued to do psu live stress test over several weeks.
The actual test is here,

http://praxis.thgweb.de/2007/01/15/s...007/index.html

strangly on the english site i can`t find it. May be some advertiser won`t read that in english? or my google skills suck.
Any way, if you want to read it, i think google translation should be ok.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

Any way, i would prefer to buy a PSu from the "real" manufacturer, like Seasonic and FSP.
Shure, even they are using badcaps from time to time, but most retail PSu`s from either of the both have not failed on me.

umm...... arent FSP's known for their horrible ripple and regulation......

[gonzo0815]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W

Hm you are probably refering to the Epsilon series, IMHO they ar within the ATX spec, any way, my FSP`s are all ok and working w/o glitches (shure, there are no Fuyiyu crap inside, so if theyr used your milage may vary).
I have afew OEM units wich are very sensitive abouth crossloading (wich is probably normal for most brands) and some older p-PFC units for 5V powered systems.
if the PSu is choosen right for the system, those problems should no toccure.

The Amacrox 500GLN is working without any problems too.

To be honest, my systems are all far from being high end stuff, my main unit consumes abouth 150w under full load (GFX & CPU).
But i haven´t seen a system wich will draw more than 200w in real life ( an yes, i would not consider the famouse Intel D820 4GHZ OC thing as an longlasting experiment, and not as an solid working system IMHO a stupid projekt right from the start, but pepople love the GHZ myth))

So the 500w Amacrox is not something i intentionaly bought, it was an ebay bargain.
otherwise i would have bought a Seasonic S12 330w or 380w.

[Fizzycapola]

Re: Quick look inside the infamous Tagan 480W