Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

[Dan81]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

Had this PSU planned for a KT133A build with a recapped ECS K7VZA rev 3, and a 1100MHz Duron (wanted a ceramic chip specifically, and the only ceramic Athlon I had is dead as a doornail ) and figured I should post it here since I don't think it looks to shabby.

For those curious:

- transformers are from an discarded Allied unit (it's one of those PSUs I've done over the years) and are their real advertised sizes (ERL35, and 2x EEL-19 from what it reads on their top sides)
- BJTs are 2x TT2194, as well as a standard CET CEP2N6 FET for 5vSB.
- secondary sillicon: 2x SBL3040PT for 3.3v and 5v, STPS20S100CT for 12v.
- Sanyo WG 1500uF 6.3v for 5vSB.
- fan is a thermally controlled Xinruilian LP

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

How often have I posted this: those heatsinks do look reasonably substantial. The main transformer looks reasonable as well. 820uF for the input lytics seems a bit marginal for 500W (more OK for 400W-450W), and I don't love that they are 85C rated. ASSuming they current-share perfectly, those paralleled 12V rectifiers are not good for 28A ... even 16A rectifiers paralleled would be marginal for 28A. In contrast and oddly, the 5V and 3.3V rectifiers are reasonable for the rated current. Another oddity is pairing a -52 material output inductor with a TL494 PWM and bipolar transistor switches (both of which keep the switch frequency low, probably around 25-35 KHz).

But for the under-rated 12V rectifiers, that looks to be a fairly decent PSU crapped up by low quality capacitors. And it did last for 10-16 years ("06" date code on one of the input lytics). Given that vintage, replacing the crap caps on the secondary side with PWs or LXZs should yield a pretty decent 400W-450W that could deliver 500W peak power for more than a femtosecond or two.

[RukyCon]

Ultra ULT-500P

Well, since my last project isn't working out how i hoped it would, I thought i would take a look at another of my PSUs that needs some repairs. In this case, an Ultra V-Series 500w PSU i found for $10 at a Savers thrift store.

Now unlike every other used PSU i find, this one still had its retail box despite being used, and came with just about everything minus the mains power cable.

Now another thing about this PSU was, the case had been opened up, and the fan was loose inside the box, but it did not appear the last owner had done anything to the board itself, because if they had, then this thing probably wouldn't have been worth trying to repair.

Anyway, here is the PSU label:

Not much to say here, but judging by the UL number, this PSU appears to have been made by Wintech.

Board Overview:


So a few things are clearly off here, the most obvious thing being the secondary caps are nearly all dead, but also, it appears something had been spilled onto the board, and had been allowed to pool up around the lower-right corner of the board. The heatsinks appear to be decently sized. And on the bottom of the board, there is a model number on it of WIN-450WP. Now it seems like this PSU board may have originally been designed for a 450w PSU, so it seems a bit sketchy to push the board to 500w, but that might just be me.

Primary Side:

So for input filtering, we have three .22uf X2 capacitors split between the main PS board and a separate filtering board, two common mode chokes, and two sets of 2 4.7nf Y2 capacitors. The rectifier is a RS805 (8A, 600V), and the smoothing capacitors are a pair of JEE 820uf 200v caps, both of which test at roughly 760uf. The main switchers are a pair of 2SC3320 transistors in what looks like a dual-foward configuration, and the 5VS/Aux switcher is a C3866 transistor in a two-transistor configuration. The main transformer is roughly 40mm x 40mm.

Secondary Side:


The filtering for each rail is as follows:
5VSB - SB540 (5A, 40v) Schottky Diode, 2x Canicon 680uf 16v with a PI coil between them.
12V - 2x F12C20C (12A, 20V) Fast Recovery Rectifiers, Su'scon SD 1000uf 16v, PI coil (4mm Core, 10 turns, 14AWG), and a Su'scon SD 2200uf 16v.
5V - S40D45C (40A, 45V) Schottky Rectifier, Canicon 3300uf 10V, PI Coil (5mm Core, 7 turns, 14AWG), JEE 2200uf 10V.
3.3V - SBL3040PT (30A, 40V) Schottky Rectifier, Canicon 3300uf 10v, PI Coil (4mm Core, 10 turns, 14AWG), JEE 2200uf 10v.
-12V - FR154?, PI Coil, Canicon 680uf 16v.
-5V - 2x FR154?, PI Coil, Canicon 680uf, 16v.

Of all of the main secondary capacitors, only three appear to have not failed yet, those being the Canicon 680uf 16v cap on the -5V rail, and the two Su'scon caps on the 12v rail, all of the smaller capacitors (except for one) are all Canicon, and a few appear to have been baked, judging by the fact their sleeves have turned a yellowish brown, though next to a couple of these baked capacitors is the only non-Canicon tiny capacitor (Su'scon SK 0.22uf 50V), and its sleeve is still bright yellow, which might say that the Canicon sleeves are just crap (just like the capacitors )
The controller chip is a KA7500C PWM IC, paired with a SG6510D1 supervisor chip.

And lastly, the fan.

Not much to say about this fan, other than the fact it's totally seized up, but i didn't notice that until i was trying to test the PSU and noticed that the fan wouldn't move, despite getting the PSU to turn on, the PSU itself was also very whiny when i powered it up, and that was with no load on the output, i assume the failed capacitors have something to do with it, but i guess i'll have to recap it and see.
Also, this happens to be my 666th post O-o.

[Dan81]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

Keep... but add missing input filtering and maybe new caps on output:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...4&d=1647766851

If I were him I'd replace the fuse as well. No way in hell that tiny fuse is gonna do anywhere past 200W or so without going nuclear.

[RukyCon]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

Forgot to add one last thing, I forgot where i had put one of the two fans that were in this PSU, so i substituted it with one of these Sanyo Denki fans i had gotten from a surplus store a long time ago.

[RukyCon]

Re: Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF, Recap and new cables

So i finally got some replacement caps for this thing, so here is the recapping, plus the new cables for this thing.

5VSB - Teapo SH 1000uf 16, Teapo SEK 470uf 16v ⇒ Rubycon YXJ 1000uf 16v, NCC KYB 470uf 16v.
12V - Teapo SEK 10uf 50v, Teapo SC 2200uf 16v -> Rubycon YXG 10uf 50v, NCC KZE 2200uf 16v.
5v - 2x Teapo SC 3300uf 10v -> 2x Panasonic FS 2700uf 10v.
3.3v - 2x Teapo SC 3300uf 6.3 -> 2x Panasonic FS 2700uf 10v.
-12v - Teapo SEK 470uf 16v -> Rubycon ZLH 680uf 16v.
-5V - Teapo SEK 10uf 50v -> Rubycon YXG 10uf 50v.

I also replaced pretty much all the smaller caps on both the primary and secondary side (forgot to document them all), and out of all the Teapo caps i replaced, only about 2 of them were still what i'd consider to be good, most of the smaller ones had high ESR, and the 3300uf ones had high leakage.

And lastly, the new cables i attached came from a couple of damaged PSUs, and the cables are as follows:
20-pin ATX cable (18AWG).
2x Molex cable (18AWG)
4-pin 12v motherboard cable (20AWG)
1x Molux plus 2x SATA cable (20AWG)

If it doesn't seem like a lot, then just know that it was all what i had lying around at the time, and i could add more if needed, but for right now, it should do.

[momaka]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

Hi everyone I have 5 PSUs for spare parts, but when they do power on.
Which of them it's a good to keep ?

Not enough pictures to show really... but here's my 2 cents anyways....

Keep:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...3&d=1647766851

Probably keep (can't see caps and other components to tell more certainly):
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...5&d=1647766851

Keep... but add missing input filtering and maybe new caps on output:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...4&d=1647766851

[razvanu]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

Hi everyone I have 5 PSUs for spare parts, but when they do power on.
Which of them it's a good to keep ?

[momaka]

Re: Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF

Yeah, i guess thats what i get for saying 'i'll probably be told if it does have any meaning'.

Ask a question... get some answers - that's how BCN usually works.

Though i find it a bit funny to have that one question answered 4 times by 4 people.

We like to be redundant.
We like to be redundant.

I was wondering who made it, but the UL number is no longer associated with anything on the UL product IQ page, however, googling it took me to this old Badcaps post, which then led me to this JonnyGURU post which has a bunch of common PSU UL numbers with what manufacturers they were associated with, which might be helpful since UL doesn't seem to keep a permanent record of these things.

Nice find!
I have something similar saved as an image/file on my PC so I can refer to it when I encounter older PSUs. Seems like not many people/places/sites are keeping track of UL numbers anymore... if at all. In fact, even UL's website kind of went dead (or at least it's not search-able by us mere mortals.)

I suppose I don't care much anymore either - I just open PSUs and use my gut feeling to tell if it looks alright or not.

There isn't really a lot of space to mount any capacitor wider than 6 or 7 mm, since it's in a bit of a tight spot.

Probably a good thing.
I got baited with my TASK PSU and put in a full 10 mm dia. cap in there. PSU didn't like it.

Now one thing i have to point out though is that whatever solder they used for this thing, seems to be highly prone to cracking under any mechanical stress, i'm guessing it must be a cheap or early lead free solder since I've head that stuff had similar issues with cracked joints.

Yeah, it probably is.
It's even more sad when you see a PSU use leaded solder and the joints are still bad.

I also swapped out some of the tiny capacitors on the primary side before testing, because they were testing with really high ESR (compared to new/used parts)

I don't blame you.
Small Teapo caps always tend to be problematic after a number of years.

[RukyCon]

Re: Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF

Well, looks like Per, PeteS, and Dmill already answered that...

Yeah, i guess thats what i get for saying 'i'll probably be told if it does have any meaning'. Though i find it a bit funny to have that one question answered 4 times by 4 people.

A-ha!
I was wondering why this PSU looked somewhat familiar. /snip/ this is a Sirtec / Sirfa -made PSU. I believe it is a "High Power" series/design.

I was wondering who made it, but the UL number is no longer associated with anything on the UL product IQ page, however, googling it took me to this old Badcaps post, which then led me to this JonnyGURU post which has a bunch of common PSU UL numbers with what manufacturers they were associated with, which might be helpful since UL doesn't seem to keep a permanent record of these things.

...don't change the values too much. For the 10 uF cap before the PI coil, you could probably increase that up to 330-470 uF and not very low ESR...

There isn't really a lot of space to mount any capacitor wider than 6 or 7 mm, since it's in a bit of a tight spot.

Well, still give it a try at re-building, if you have the time or would enjoy doing it. Probably put some wires on the output first and see how the PSU runs with the original caps...

I haven't done a full test yet, but i did do a no-load test and it seemed to have passed that (5VSB came on, PSU fired up when PSON was pulled low). Now one thing i have to point out though is that whatever solder they used for this thing, seems to be highly prone to cracking under any mechanical stress, i'm guessing it must be a cheap or early lead free solder since I've head that stuff had similar issues with cracked joints. I also swapped out some of the tiny capacitors on the primary side before testing, because they were testing with really high ESR (compared to new/used parts), which was a "risky" move, since i didn't know if the PSU worked beforehand. But it appears to have worked out in the end.

[momaka]

Re: Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF

Nope, it's only one IRFBC20, the other one is a P6NB80.

Good catch!
Sounds about right - IRFBC20 is for the 5VSB (since these are generally low-current parts) and the P6NB80 should be the main PS switch.

Anyway, here is another PSU that i have, this one (unlike the last one I posted) is going to be fixed up, since it appears to be a well-built PSU (and it wasn't in two halves like the last one).

I concur.
Looks OK for a fix-up.

not sure what the 'ATX 12V' sticker is supposed to mean (don't all ATX supplies have 12v?)

Well, looks like Per, PeteS, and Dmill already answered that.
But indeed it was just to denote that the PSU had (supposedly ) a strong enough 12V rail for a 12V-based system. In the early 2000's and before Pentium 4 came out, most motherboards used the 5V rail to power the CPU, and this is where most of the load from the PSU was going. Then around 2002-2003, the 4-pin 12V CPU connector started to appear on motherboards - mostly on Pentium 4 motherboards at first, but eventually also on latter-made Athlon XP boards... and it caught on, because it allowed for more power to be transferred to the motherboard without the need for very thick cables.
That being said, PSU manufacturers still kept the strong 5V rail for a few more years afterwards in order to be backwards-compatible with older motherboards. And yet to show that their PSU was also capable of handing new systems, such "ATX 12V" stickers were quite common. Other ones commonly seen were "Intel Pentium 4 - ready", "Approved by Intel and AMD", "Complies with Intel Pentium 4 and AMD motherboards", and similar. In reality, though, only usually the cheaper PSUs had these labels. That's not to say that the PSU you posted is necessarily a cheap one. Some manufacturers just continued to do that well into the mid-late 2000's for some reason (too lazy to re-design their labels, I guess. )

Some of you may have noticed that something is bodged onto the primary side, and that is a 220pf 1kv ceramic capacitor, and it's hooked right across the drain and source pins of the Mosfet there, i may be wrong, but i'm guessing someone forgot to put a proper snubber in the PCB design, so this is supposed to be a quick fix.

Yes, kind of.
Actually, it's probably more to do with slowing down the turn-On time of the switching transistor on the 5VSB. I've seen this on a few PSU's 2-transistor 5VSB circuits, though it's rare. Indeed it was probably a last-second production floor "fix". I think I even tried removing it on one PSU just to see what happens... and the 5VSB circuit was definitely not happy - regulation all over the place and harsh squealing noises. I did it with an incandescent light bulb in series with the line input, of course... so no damage to the PSU. Just put back the cap in and all was good.

with the 5VSB/aux switcher being a SSP2N60B Mosfet, which is set up in what appears to be a classic two transistor design.

Yup... 2-transistor self-oscillator it is.

The main transformer is 40mm wide by 45mm tall, which seems oversized for 420w, but better that than undersized.

Nice!
It's probably an "ERL39" (i.e. 39 mm). But with the tape insulation an all, it does usually come out to 40 mm measured.
Good to see a large transformer like this. Half-bridge PSUs tend to have slow switching speed of the main PS, so they need more turns for their windings... and thus bigger transformer size if thick windings are to be put inside. This along with the 2SC3320 BJTs makes is a pretty capable PSU - at least on the primary and transformer side of things.

Secondary side; ...

Right off the bat, I see a green toroid core for the 3.3V rail's output inductor, and a pretty good sized one at that. This is a Micrometals -52 core and definitely good to see (lower losses.) The main output toroid appears standard -26 core, but at least it's still pretty large in size and appears to have a good amount of copper on it.

12V: MBR30150PT (30A, 150V) rectifier, Teapo SEK 10uf 50v, PI Coil, Teapo SC 2200uf 16v.

A-ha!
I was wondering why this PSU looked somewhat familiar.
The SG6105d PWM IC was already running a few ideas up in my head.
But that cap combo arrangement on the 12V rail is the giveaway here: this is a Sirtec / Sirfa -made PSU. I believe it is a "High Power" series/design.

Here's a similar Jeantech PSU I posted about awhile back:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...postcount=2727

And to some extent, you can also see the similarities in this Task TK-930TX PSU, also made by Sirtec (but slightly older, dating back to 2003):
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...postcount=2735

That said and regarding the filter caps on the 12V rail - don't change the values too much. For the 10 uF cap before the PI coil, you could probably increase that up to 330-470 uF and not very low ESR (GP 105C is OK)... but I wouldn't go further. Seems the feedback loop doesn't like it otherwise. Actually, IIRC, someone (the Unique??) fixed this issue on one of these PSUs before by moving the 12V rail's feedback point somewhere else... but I'll have to look through my bookmarks to see if I save this or not.

The Fans:
...
Don't know much about this brand, but i took both apart to clean them, and they're both ball bearing fans, so from that, they'll be good i hope.

SuperRed are pretty good fans - about the same level as Yate Loon and such... well, at least the older SuperRed fans, like in this PSU. On ATI/AMD Radeon HD video cards, they transitioned to a "sealed" design, where the fan can't be opened (easily, without some destruction.) Same with PowerLogic.
I'm not a big fan of those newer fans... pun intended.

Judging by the datecodes on this thing, i'm guessing this was made mid 2005.

Yup, you can see that even on the label where it says "0525" - made in 2005, week 25.

I did think it had something to do with being a more modern PSU, but when i saw the 5v rail was more powerful than the 12v rail, i started to think it meant something else, but i guess my initial suspicion was correct.

It's an old 5V-heavy design adapted/tweaked to work with newer PCs.
Actually, in the case of my TASK TK-930TX PSU, I eventually found out that 12V-heavy (but not too heavy, lol ) PCs work OK on it. If I try any 5V-based motherboard, the 12V rail easily goes over 12.6-12.7V, which is above 5% spec... and it also tends to swing a lot as the load on the 5V rail changes. As for the Jeantech PSU, I never tried that in a 5V-based PC. I put it in an old Athlon 64 X2 rig with GeForce 8500 GT video card, and it's been powering that rig OK with decent voltage regulation.

but maybe i gave this PSU too much credit, as i am not a expert at these things and just do these posts so fun and also to maybe learn a thing or two in the process.

Well, still give it a try at re-building, if you have the time or would enjoy doing it. Probably put some wires on the output first and see how the PSU runs with the original caps. If all is well, then recap it. This would also give you a baseline of whether the PSU was actually working or not. Otherwise you might start thinking you did something wrong with the recap and other 2nd thoughts.

Here's a PSU (a Compaq branded Hi-Pro) from an AMD K6-2 system with only a 8A 12V rail.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1647041084


This is pretty heavily built for a 250W unit, hard see the markings on the silicon without disassembling it though.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1647041084
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1647041084
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1647041084

Nice classic PSU there!
Those are pretty much bullet-proof with good caps.

We have bought ~ 15 Corsair VS power supplies (CWT platform) and none of them had its fan fail until now. Some of them failed due to dried primary caps (Aishi 400V).

I knew that Corsair/CWT put Yate Loon fans on VS series, so I was shocked to find a Chinese crap fan inside this unit:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1646525302
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1646525302

Nobody cracked open this psu before, the warranty sticker was intact.

Lessons learnt from this story:

Brand/model matters a lot! It is not a random incident that this fan died while the Yate Loon fans on the other units keep going.

And on the sub level, it probably comes down to what kind of grease/oil these fans use.
I think the main problem is that the cheap/cheaper fans use either very little lubricant or just some low-quality stuff that gunks up / dries away quickly, leaving the bearing to run dry.

Please correct me if I am wrong and this is not what it looks to me: a typical crap Chinese fan

Well, TBH, I could think of many more "crappier" fans.
Te Bao Metallic Plastic / Raidmax fans come to mind here... and not only.
Globe fans are also very model-dependent - some are complete crap, others are quite OK.
And Rulian Science? Remember those from early 2000's Deer and L&C PSUs? - Those seize up very easily too.

That said, I still don't mind even the cheap "crap" bottom-of-the-barrel fans... most of the time.
Usually, they just need a good cleaning / "grooving" of the sleeve bearing and some high quality machine oil. After that, they'll work for many more years without problems.
It is a shame though, that Corsair switched brands like that mid-production.
Then again, it's Corsair - they literally put their name on stuff made by someone else, just like EVGA and many others like that. I tend not to trust such companies too much.

Now if it was a Delta-made PSU with a Delta fan, you know we are talking serious business.

[dmill89]

Re: Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF

This is sort of marketing speak to tell you that the PSU is of a more modern design and should be able to accept a power hungry CPU on the 12v rail with little load on the 5v and 3.3v without going out of regulation.
This is because in the olden days CPU's where fed by 5v and even 3.3v in ancient days, so 12v saw very little load.
This changed with the introduction of the Pentium 4.
Another way is to call it "P4 ready" or something along those lines.
Now whether the label actually means anything or is just bullshit is a completely different topic
(Well, based on its label it is bullshit, because it has more power available on the 3.3v and 5v rails vs the 12v rails).

I did think it had something to do with being a more modern PSU, but when i saw the 5v rail was more powerful than the 12v rail, i started to think it meant something else, but i guess my initial suspicion was correct.



This unit does have two fans, one mounted in the usual location on the back, and the other mounted over the primary heatsink with some overlap with the secondary, so maybe that's why they used a smaller heatsink, but maybe i gave this PSU too much credit, as i am not a expert at these things and just do these posts so fun and also to maybe learn a thing or two in the process.

Yes it was common back in the early days of 12V heavy CPUs (Pentium 4/D, AMD Athlon 64, early Core2Duo/Quad, etc.) to mean the PSU could handle these CPUs (at least theoretically) and had the 4-pin 12V CPU connector.
It may or many not be more "modern", early on some PSU manufactures had some "interesting" solutions to "shoehorn" a larger 12V rail into an older design (in some cases even just shoving in a separate board with just a 12V rail on it). Prior to this many PSUs had a sub-10A 12V rail since most load was on the 3.3/5V rails. Here's a PSU (a Compaq branded Hi-Pro) from an AMD K6-2 system with only a 8A 12V rail.



This is pretty heavily built for a 250W unit, hard see the markings on the silicon without disassembling it though.





Note no 4-pin CPU connector:

[RukyCon]

Re: Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF

This is sort of marketing speak to tell you that the PSU is of a more modern design and should be able to accept a power hungry CPU on the 12v rail with little load on the 5v and 3.3v without going out of regulation.

I did think it had something to do with being a more modern PSU, but when i saw the 5v rail was more powerful than the 12v rail, i started to think it meant something else, but i guess my initial suspicion was correct.

I'm not loving the output side heatsink, needs a bit more "beef" I think. All in all, though it's at least a credible 300W-350W PSU, and with good cooling, maybe its full rated power.

This unit does have two fans, one mounted in the usual location on the back, and the other mounted over the primary heatsink with some overlap with the secondary, so maybe that's why they used a smaller heatsink, but maybe i gave this PSU too much credit, as i am not a expert at these things and just do these posts so fun and also to maybe learn a thing or two in the process.

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

The SG6105D is a voltage mode PWM and supervisor combo. The LM339 is a quad comparator, and the LM324 a quad op-amp.

I'm not loving the output side heatsink, needs a bit more "beef" I think. All in all, though it's at least a credible 300W-350W PSU, and with good cooling, maybe its full rated power/

Re that 220pF snubber, I've seen designs where a crappy .1uF cap was a snubber, in which its high ESR was the "snubber resistor" (this was at Boschert in the early 1980s). Maybe Thermaltake is doing the same.

This is sort of marketing speak to tell you that the PSU is of a more modern design and should be able to accept a power hungry CPU on the 12v rail with little load on the 5v and 3.3v without going out of regulation.
This is because in the olden days CPU's where fed by 5v and even 3.3v in ancient days, so 12v saw very little load.
....

That's my thinking as well. A few years earlier, around the turn of the century, 12V currents were lower, while 5V and 3.3V currents were similar to this PSU, except with 250W-300W ratings.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF

Nothing too noteworthy here, not sure what the 'ATX 12V' sticker is supposed to mean (don't all ATX supplies have 12v?), but i'll probably be told if it does have any meaning. :p

This is sort of marketing speak to tell you that the PSU is of a more modern design and should be able to accept a power hungry CPU on the 12v rail with little load on the 5v and 3.3v without going out of regulation.
This is because in the olden days CPU's where fed by 5v and even 3.3v in ancient days, so 12v saw very little load.
This changed with the introduction of the Pentium 4.
Another way is to call it "P4 ready" or something along those lines.
Now whether the label actually means anything or is just bullshit is a completely different topic
(Well, based on its label it is bullshit, because it has more power available on the 3.3v and 5v rails vs the 12v rails).

[RukyCon]

Thermaltake Purepower HPC-420-102 DF

The main switchers are a pair of IRFBC20's...

Nope, it's only one IRFBC20, the other one is a P6NB80.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway, here is another PSU that i have, this one (unlike the last one I posted) is going to be fixed up, since it appears to be a well-built PSU (and it wasn't in two halves like the last one).

Label;

Nothing too noteworthy here, not sure what the 'ATX 12V' sticker is supposed to mean (don't all ATX supplies have 12v?), but i'll probably be told if it does have any meaning. :p

Overview;


Not much to say here, it's a decently packed power supply, the soldering mostly looks good, overall just very good looking. Some of you may have noticed that something is bodged onto the primary side, and that is a 220pf 1kv ceramic capacitor, and it's hooked right across the drain and source pins of the Mosfet there, i may be wrong, but i'm guessing someone forgot to put a proper snubber in the PCB design, so this is supposed to be a quick fix.

Primary Side;


Starting off, we have a pair of Teapo LXK 820uf 200v capacitors, both of which test around 748uf in circuit, feeding them is a GBU805 bridge rectifier, and for filtering, we have two 2x capacitors (1x0.22uf, 1x0.47uf) plus a third one located on the IEC connector/EMI filter (0.47uf), the EMI filter contains another x2 cap (0.1uf), 2x 3.3nf Y capacitors, and a common mode choke. Back to what's on the power supply PCB, we also have a NTC thermistor, a rather big looking common mode choke, and another pair of 3.3nf Y2 capacitors. There's also a pair of varistors located after the bridge rectifier.

The main switchers are a pair of 2SC3320 transistors, with the 5VSB/aux switcher being a SSP2N60B Mosfet, which is set up in what appears to be a classic two transistor design. The main transformer is 40mm wide by 45mm tall, which seems oversized for 420w, but better that than undersized.

Secondary side;

The filtering for each real is as follows;
5VSB: SB5100 (5A, 100V) diode, Teapo SH 1000uf 16v, PI coil, Teapo SEK 470uf 16v.
12V: MBR30150PT (30A, 150V) rectifier, Teapo SEK 10uf 50v, PI Coil, Teapo SC 2200uf 16v.
5v: 2x D83-004 (30A, 40V) rectifier, 2x Teapo SC 3300uf 10v (10mm) capacitors with a PI coil between them.
3.3v: SBL4045PT (40A, 45V) rectifier, 2x Teapo SC 3300uf 6.3v capacitors with a PI coil between them.
-12v: 2x PR3001 diodes, PI coil, PR1001 diode, Teapo SEK 470uf 16v.
-5V (fed off of -12V): LM7905CT, Teapo SEK 10uf 50v.

The main controller is a SG6105D supervisor, with a LM339N quad op-amp.
The output wires on this thing were cut off (this was found in the trash around the same time as the newton PSU, so they were likely taken for the copper), but they appeared to have mostly been 16AWG with some 18AWG wires, the only wire that was 20AWG or smaller was the 3.3v sense wire.

The Fans:

Don't know much about this brand, but i took both apart to clean them, and they're both ball bearing fans, so from that, they'll be good i hope.

Anyway, thats this power supply covered, hopefully with fewer mistakes than the last one, as i mentioned at the beginning of the post, i'm going to be fixing this one up, this will hopefully include new wires, and maybe a full recap (i have most of the parts for a recap, just lacking some 3300uf and 2.2uf caps). Judging by the datecodes on this thing, i'm guessing this was made mid 2005.

[lti]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

That's one of those Hong Hua fake-FDB fans. They were popular for a while, but they're just cheap crap.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

The review is still not out, but I think I can share the pics

Corsair VS450 - CWT
Interesting thing is this CAP004DG on one X cap, providing savings on it's safe resistors. GBU406 rectifier. All crappy caps, 180 uF/400 V AiSHi(t) on input; it hovever has CM6805+CM03X which claims to have advanced PFC/PWM requiring cheaper cap and silicon.

Some cheap chinese copy of 13N50 on PFC with PFCD86G diode. Switchers are some 10N50. This all has high Rds(ON), that's the low efficiency of it hitting 80 %, but average is under 80 % thus it has no certification.

TNY177PN for +5 V SB, other crappy caps - small JunFus arround which may be baked by the chip, C(r)apXon2200+1000 uF combo on output. However it has nice beefy diode with nothing arround, so it may stay cool.

Other secondary: double STPS20L60CT/+12 V, STPS30L45CT/+5 V and finally magamped MBRF2045CTG for +3,3 V. Sitronix ST9S429 aka Unisonic Technologies S3515 secondary monitor. Mostly 2200+1000 uF C(r)apXon/AiSHi(t) combo.

It has actually very good voltage control on crossloading, voltages varied even less than on combined control (aprox. 2 % vs 3 %). Ripple is within 60 % of spec (very low on +12 V). BUT. The -12 V rail may be very problematic. Loading it with 0,36-0,38 A of mine Papst fan between -12 and +5 V made it oscillate like hell. I haven't checked at 0,3 A precisely but I think it may have strong problems as well. It's feedback is connected to +3,3Vs voltage-wise and to +12Vs current-wise.

Built quality is not that good providing it's the cheapest Corsair has, but it's not actually dangerous or something.

Where I work, we had a Corsair VS450 that had its fan almost seized.

The fan was barely moving and the PC was buzzing due to vibrations from the dying fan.

We have bought ~ 15 Corsair VS power supplies (CWT platform) and none of them had its fan fail until now. Some of them failed due to dried primary caps (Aishi 400V).

I knew that Corsair/CWT put Yate Loon fans on VS series, so I was shocked to find a Chinese crap fan inside this unit:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1646525302
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1646525302

Nobody cracked open this psu before, the warranty sticker was intact.

Lessons learnt from this story:

Brand/model matters a lot! It is not a random incident that this fan died while the Yate Loon fans on the other units keep going.

Corsair and other companies should never be trusted. It is acceptable to change cap manufacturer during production of a model, but sending a psu for reviews with good quality fan and then years later randomly switching to terrible fan brands found on crap power supplies that cost 15-20 euros is plain fraud. If, for some reason, they had trouble sourcing Yate Loon fans they could switch to similar grade fans.

Please correct me if I am wrong and this is not what it looks to me: a typical crap Chinese fan

[goodpsusearch]

Re: FSP Group Inc. AX400-PN – cap diagram, partial recap, & resistor mods

all the old Teapo and OST caps I had left from the first time still appeared good. I didn't pull them to check them, but I didn't have a reason to either – the PC is still running happy.

You even managed to save those Teapos and Osts from failing or getting pulled out. Excellent

[RukyCon]

Re: Power supply build quality pictorial. part 2

That said, I don't think that primary transformer is ERL38...

Yeah, that was a typo i failed to noticed before posting (meant to put in ERL28), either that, or my brain was running close to empty, which given the fact i posted that post at around 3AM, might explain it.

Regarding the "1004BL" chip on the primary side - that's very likely an equivalent to a UC384x series (e.g. UC3842, 3843, and etc.) current-mode PWM controller and it's *not* for the 5VSB. It's for the main PS and drives the MOSFET closer to the main transformer. The other MOSFET is for the 5VSB circuit, which is a 2-transistor self-oscillating design with feedback...

I really should've realized that, given the lack of a 3rd transformer (which i believe would've been used to drive the primary side mosfets from the secondary/stand-by side, if i'm not mistaken (again)). Of course if i could find a datasheet on it, i probably would've realized that, but i guess that goes to show why you should never assume things.

I'm pretty sure that's not it. -12V rail should be generated from it's own tap on the main transformer... and from what I can see from the underside / PCB shot, it is. It appears to be that first pin on the bottom of the transformer...

Okay, i realized that, somehow, i got stuck around the where it appears the 3.3v diode bridge is partially tied to the 7912 via a jumper, but i definitely should've spent more time looking at it

I know probably none of this matters to you, since you said you're not going to fix this PSU... and I don't blame you!

While it is true that i won't be repairing this PSU, the info that you provide me here helped me realize the mistakes i made when reverse engineering it, so that (hopefully) i won't make the same mistakes again, so in a way, it does matter to me.

...I'm mostly interested in the 5VSB transformer...

I can send it your way, since i'm not fully sure what i'd do with it anyway, i also don't remove all the smaller components from the PCB (resistors, ceramic/film/tiny electrolytic capacitors, multi-pin chips, etc.), so if you also want the mostly stripped PCB from this, then i could send it along to (i also have some older computer stuff that i'm looking to get rid of) so hmu if you're interested.