A good friend of mine brought to me a rather large LED light array that is used for fish tanks. IT's so large in fact, that it requires TWO ATX style power supplies.
He told me that as soon as he turns it on, the LEDs turn on, but then shortly turn off.
I tried powering the lights with just one power supply, but they wont power with just one, so with both turned on, the lights do turn on, but then they turn off.
The power supplies are identical, and one of them seems just fine, but the other one ... within 10 seconds after connecting it to power, the two heat sinks get too hot to touch... so it seems like it might be shutting itself down before it burns itself out.
Here are some pictures
I understand a little about ATX power supplies ... that there's a high side and a low side and usually a PWM chip that drive a transformer and also usually a comparator chip that keeps an eye on voltage levels etc.
Since one heat sink is on the high side and the other on the low side, its puzzling to me that both of them are getting that hot that quickly. And of course I'm not sure which fet on either heat sink is the one drawing all that current...
Advice on how to move forward here to figure this out?
Thank you,
He told me that as soon as he turns it on, the LEDs turn on, but then shortly turn off.
I tried powering the lights with just one power supply, but they wont power with just one, so with both turned on, the lights do turn on, but then they turn off.
The power supplies are identical, and one of them seems just fine, but the other one ... within 10 seconds after connecting it to power, the two heat sinks get too hot to touch... so it seems like it might be shutting itself down before it burns itself out.
Here are some pictures
I understand a little about ATX power supplies ... that there's a high side and a low side and usually a PWM chip that drive a transformer and also usually a comparator chip that keeps an eye on voltage levels etc.
Since one heat sink is on the high side and the other on the low side, its puzzling to me that both of them are getting that hot that quickly. And of course I'm not sure which fet on either heat sink is the one drawing all that current...
Advice on how to move forward here to figure this out?
Thank you,
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