L&C LC-300ATX power supply

[bushytails]

Patient history:
Purchased at a garage sale about a year ago for $5. Guy selling it said it worked perfectly. Got home, plugged it in, short-circuited SMPS whistle and nothing else. Threw it into the junk bin.

Came across it looking for a replacement for one that died, and decided to perform an autospy.

First and most obvious failure is a large burnt area. This supply has let the magic smoke out. The seller obviously lied when he said it worked, as it's kinda hard to miss the release of the magic smoke contained within that area.

But wait... buldging Rulycons!
2x 10v 2200uf
1x 16v 470uf
1x 16v 220uf (tiny!)
1x 25v 100uf (also tiny!)

In addition, the board itself is marked DR-240ATX, and what looks like DEER brand. can we say 240 watt board sold as a 300? in any case, the insta-explode caps were probably the root cause of the failure...

I took a bunch of pics with my digicam, but I'll post them later... need to get some sleep, and not up to transferring, cropping, uploading, etc.


--Randy

[bushytails]

I feel like crap, so you all can just look at them straight off the camera.

http://www.bushytails.net/~randyg/p1010030.jpg <== the large cap under the heatsink and the one to the right of it are buldging, as well as the tiny one between the two caps to the right.

http://www.bushytails.net/~randyg/p1010031.jpg <== other caps bent out of the way to show the ratings on the little cap... never say little caps don't fail! the left of the pair of caps on the bottom right is also rather buldgy.

http://www.bushytails.net/~randyg/p1010021.jpg <== result. note both the major burnt area at the bottom middle and some damage under the left heat sink.

http://www.bushytails.net/~randyg/p1010035.jpg <== note the tiny little 25v 100uf Rulycon in the middle... it's not too visible in the photo, but the top is slightly buldging.

http://www.bushytails.net/~randyg/p1010025.jpg <== another shot of the two big buldging ones, showing the Rulycon brand.

Moral of the story: even the tiny 100uf (censored)s can fail.

--Randy

[willawake]

sorry about that. least i can do is fix your photos



the large cap under the heatsink and the one to the right of it are bulging, as well as the tiny one between the two caps to the right.



other caps bent out of the way to show the ratings on the little cap... never say little caps don't fail! the left of the pair of caps on the bottom right is also rather bulgy.



result. note both the major burnt area at the bottom middle and some damage under the left heat sink.



note the tiny little 25v 100uf Rulycon in the middle... it's not too visible in the photo, but the top is slightly buldging.



another shot of the two big buldging ones, showing the Rulycon brand.

[bushytails]

Was at a garage sale today... picked up a 512mb pc133 stick for $2, a radeon 8500le for $10, and some assorted things... the seller was parting out a computer with a bad power supply. he'd taken the supply apart for the fun of it... another DR-240ATX. identical to the one here. burnt spot in the exact same place, even. more dead rulycons, and some brand I couldn't see with "VENT" on it that had, indeed, vented... don't know what brand was on the outside of the power supply, as he'd already tossed the box, but the board was the same as mine.

--Randy

[gg1978]

That is definately a Deer PSU.. I had an identicle one that blew up and smoked in the exact same place. Those PSU's are total utter shit.. Deer goes under like 12 different names, since people catch on to their crappy PSU's and they have to change their name to keep selling them.. And indeed, the board is marked as a 240W PSU, even though i doubt it's good for even a solid 160 W.. Just looking at the heatsinks and the lack of filter caps and inductors in the output section tells all..

[kc8adu]

like powmax! lotsa brands same crap.latest is a power.

That is definately a Deer PSU.. I had an identicle one that blew up and smoked in the exact same place. Those PSU's are total utter shit.. Deer goes under like 12 different names, since people catch on to their crappy PSU's and they have to change their name to keep selling them.. And indeed, the board is marked as a 240W PSU, even though i doubt it's good for even a solid 160 W.. Just looking at the heatsinks and the lack of filter caps and inductors in the output section tells all..

[gg1978]

Kinda OT, but interesting

A while back i did a comparison of one of these Deer PSU's versus my Delta DPS 300BB.. IMO the 300BB is one of the best PSU's you can get, for an older system anyway. If it only had the +12V ATX 12V connector, i would be using it in my main system now. One little quirk is that if it doesn't have enough load on the +3.3V line, it won't turn on. Every single cap in the DPS 300 BB is either Nichicon or Rubycon, and it's vintage is mid 2000.. It's been running my server ever since.. Directron.com had them for $13 each when i bought them, i only bought two though. Looking back, i should have bought at least 4 or 6 of them...

[bushytails]

Minimum load requirements are fairly common... I've used a car headlight as a dummy load; at 3.3v it barely glows, but should make the supply happy.

--Randy