Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

[everell]

Have two blown Sparkles suffering from same problem. Both have blown fuse, the active power factor correction MOSFETs are blown, and the primary capacitor is both open and bulging. The capacitor looks like a general purpose variety. Considering that part of the charging voltage comes from the PCF circuit, I am wondering what kind of capacitor would make a good replacement.

[370forlife]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

What caused such a massive failure? Certainly seems more than just the primary cap going bad.

[Toasty]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

Panasonic - HB
CDE - SLP
UCC - KMG

>>What caused such a massive failure? Certainly seems more than just the primary cap going bad.<<

Not at all. Shorted cap takes out the FET's.

Edit: @ Everell - Bridge okay? Fuse saved it?

[370forlife]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

He said both caps were open though?

Maybe just got mixed up?

[everell]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

Bridge OK on both power supplies.

Both had primary capacitor bulge at top. On LCR meter, both indicated very low capacitance down in the nF. Ohmeter did not indicate short. Blue esr meter indicated both were above 99 ohms. They may have shorted but afterwards must have opened - perhaps blasted apart!

Toasty - what was your reason for recommending these particular series of capacitors? I am thinking that active pfc requires that primary capacitor will need low esr capacitor because it must handle power controlled by pfc circuit - which is switching at about 100 Khz.

[kc8adu]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

i have seen this forming a pattern in apfc units.
first in a dual g5's psu and now in a few odd ones one being an industrial unit from yaskawa/motoman.
seems we need to replace known crap brands here too....

[Toasty]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

The OST SP(E?) & CapXon LP you show are nothing special. The spec sheets show them about the same ~2A ripple. Nothing as far as impedance listed.

Power across that cap is right off the bridge IIRC from some reverse-engineered schematic awhile ago. The boost comes in before a diode ahead of the cap.

My choices are based on experience with those 3 series.

Toast

[i4004]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

umh everell, you're going the wrong way, i would say.
these caps were not cause of the issue, more like the consequence of riot in the a-pfc circuit...wether it was external voltage spike, or something internal made a-pfc circuit go mad, is a good question, though...

there is something weird going on with particular ups units and particular a-pfc designs
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...light=chieftec
dunno if this case can be traced back to such event, but i really, really doubt caps on the primary are the reason for these events...

willawake had a case of a-pfc fortron blowing while on ups, if i remember correctly.
(better to say it went thru ups...we can't say was it running off the batteries at the time...)

few things from linuxguru
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...-pfc#post28727
that also add to my experience of primary caps being blown only when spikes occur...

we discussed a-pfc stuff here
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...-pfc#post60221

i would imagine there are some chances a-pfc chip is shot too....
there was some good pdf on a-pfc i linked here a while back..hm...

here's the "reverse-engineered schematic awhile ago" toasty mentions
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...achmentid=8770
it's in the thread i linked above.

shorted C7 can't blow the fets, according to it.

[japlytic]

Re: Blown Sparkle FSP400-60GLC

The two 400V electrolytics are of the snap-in type (25Wx46L), so use two Nippon Chemi-Con SMM 330uF 450V units (they have slightly better ripple current ratings than the originals). They are 4mm longer than the originals, but this should not be a problem.