Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

[bauto601]

So... Today someone gave me a TFX power supply. He didn't use it because his old TFX power supply turned out to be more silent than this one, so probably no fan control on this unit then.

I've put some pictures of the internals of this PSU in the attachement. I've made a list of the somewhat crucial components:

Primary:

Switcher:
1x 11N90

Caps:
2x Aisa X 470uF 200V

Bridge Rectifier:
GBU606


Transformer:
ERL-28


Secondary:

Switchers:

Back Side secondary heatsink:
YPI YPI6055C

Front Side secondary heatsink:
Mospec S30C45C (probably 3.3V)
Mospec S30C45C (probably 5V)
MBR30100CT (probably 12V)

Secondary Caps:
3.3V:
H.Q. Lowesr 1000Uf 10V
5V:
Aisa X 2200uF 10V
12V:
2x Aisa X 2200uF 16V
Aisa X 1000uF 16V
-12V:
Heng 1000uF 16V
+5VSB:
H.Q. Lowesr 1000uF 10V
Aisa X 2200uF 10V

What do you guys think of it? How many watts could this thing deliver? And would it do more than 14A on the 12V rail? Because that spec seems rather low, even for the 280W the label claims. And BTW, it's assembled in December 2016, quite recently.

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

Hmmmm ... it's a single-switch forward converter, and the output transformer seems kind of small. I'd guess 200W-250W. The heatsinks look decent, and the 30A rectifiers on the high current outputs are very nice.

The 470uF caps would be decent for upwards of 250W, I think, but the question would be if they really are 470uF. But 420W? Hold-up time would be terrible if it didn't fry fairly quickly.

Even used for 200W-250W, I think the low quality output caps are an Achilles heel. Since it was made in August or September last year, probably, it could be worth re-capping. If your soldering skills are good, scraping solder mask and soldering that reinforcing wire all along the trace it reinforces would be nice.

[kc8adu]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

lots of poor soldering on that thing.
and that wire isnt doing much.why did they even bother?

[jiroy]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

Some days ago , i mentioned a Delux power supply 500W with all its capacitors Asia'x bulged and leaking in less than 6 months ..

It's not a good deal ...

[bauto601]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

Thanks for your replies!

Today i built the pc with these specs:

AMD Athlon X4 860K
Asrock FM2 motherboard
4x2GB DDR3 rams
AMD Radeon HD 7570 GPU
HDD, SSD
Antec VSK2000-U3 case

It ran quite hot, the CPU and PSU where just way too hot for my liking. I adjusted the PSU fan speed with a Zalman fan controller to have it at the point that it moves a decent amount of air but isn't too loud.

The case just has some very poor airflow, at the front there is one 80MM fan and all the panels don't have any airflow holes, so only at the front it could breathe fresh air and at the back it could exit the case.

So i adjusted the setup to this:

AMD Athlon II x2 245 @ 3.5Ghz (standard vcore)
2x4GB DDR2
Asus motherboard

And now it runs much cooler. I will recap it in the next months, but now it is just a quick build. PSU still runs quite warm, not good for the caps i guess...

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

Browsing thru your pix, it looks like there's a lot of "stuff" in the air path, which will diminish the airflow volume. Of course, you want air to flow through heatsink fins and across inductors, so a lot of the "stuff" is things that need to be cooled.

When you do your re-cap maybe see if you can replace the 470uF, 200V caps with shorter and/or smaller diameter parts. Those caps aren't stressed as much, and might last a long time, but if a better, smaller, series part can be found, those could improve your airflow.

Similarly (and hypothetically), when you replace the output caps, shorter parts would improve airflow. Also, remove all the glue that supports to output caps against shock and vibration. That also blocks airflow. If you want new supporting glue, keep it low.

Finally, when you've finished your recap, use tie-wraps or lacing twine to keep wire bundles and individual wires from blocking airflow through the PSU. Finally, it looks like there is 2mm-4mm of tape around the top of T2 that could be trimmed off with an Xacto knife that seems to have no purpose, but does block airflow some.

You don't want to mess up the cooling of components inside the PSU, but if you can improve airflow through the PSU through better wire routing, glue removal, and removing tape that serves no purpose, that will improve the cooling in your system. Every little bit helps.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

As you posted on JG: http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/show...479#post139479

Luckily this PSU was given for free, so i don't mind spending some time on it. I will just reuse decent caps from old and broken motherboards. That should keep the costs low.

But if it is half decent for 200W, i will probably just use it for a while and check the caps every now and then. The HW that's connected to it aint that important.

I do have a Tektronix 465 oscilloscope here, could i just measure the ripple when i'm stressing the pc, or will the power draw from the pc interfere with the ripple measuring? Because they don't have a smooth power draw i think...

Don't reuse caps from mainboards.
Their ESR will be too low and you will have a PSU with worse performance than before the recap.
You need to replace the caps with similarly rated replacements.

[momaka]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

I agree with the others here - this PSU is probably good for 200-250 Watts at the most (and with ripple in spec). The primary caps are only 470 uF, so that puts the limit closer to 250-300 Watts max before the hold-up becomes too short. But really it is the 28-size transformer and that small output toroid that keep the ratings down. With a 28-size transformer, you won't get more than about 200 Watts out of it, unless the controller/driver IC switches at higher frequency and the transformer is made for it. The wire on the output toroid and the toroid itself are also just about good enough for 250 Watts at the most. So you really have a 200-250 Watt PSU.

At least the output rectifiers are a bit higher-rated, so the efficiency should be a bit higher. As for the output caps, you may get 6 months to a year of use out of them, but I wouldn't expect more.

Overall, it is not too bad of a PSU, but I personally wouldn't try to push it past 150 Watts continuous, just to keep things cool. The Athlon II with onboard GPU should be no problem for that PSU. The X4 with a discreet mid-range GPU, on the other hand, will make things hotter, as you saw.

[Quaddro]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

11 A primary mosfet..
Actually enough for 350 watt max, and 300w for daily.

Small transformer..

30A on secondary rectifier..pretty big.
well, at least if this thing blown, it'll happen in primary..

And No PiFilter..
The secondary caps will work harder to suppress ripple..

Recaps will help to improve durability, but not performance..

But why it's getting so hot?
Try to calculate with some stupid number..
X4 860 120 watt Full load.
7570 60 watt Full load.
HDD 15 watt
SSD 5 watt.
Mobo 20 watt
Fans 20 watt.

240 watt.

It's already 80% of your psu capability.

With not enough circulation, it'll getting hot fast.

Solution, fix your air flow, add more fan to your psu, lower your load.
The best idea, get a better PSU.

[Behemot]

Re: Your opinion on this budget TFX PSU

You better Replace it with something decent