What do you guys think of these power supplies?

[hoober]

I've got the 30 amp model and it won't quite do 25 amps. I paid $20 for it.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by hoober

I've got the 30 amp model and it won't quite do 25 amps. I paid $20 for it.

Interesting, I found the larger model cheaper than he sells them. I may give it a try... If it only does 30 amps it will still be more potent than what I have now...

[lincpimp]

Ok, so I just won the 46amp unit on ebay for 23.99 shipped... Saved a few bucks. I will get some pics of it up here when I receive it.

[What's_nitro?]

Originally Posted by hoober

I've got the 30 amp model and it won't quite do 25 amps. I paid $20 for it.

That's ridiculous. How did you test it? At that price I'd think it was defective.

[magman]

I have 2 computer ps that I made 1 is 8amp and the other is 9amp. The large one will only do my 4 and 5s packs..it sends an error on smaller packs. The 8amp one will do it all no sweat. I am looking into a larger one so I can do 2 5s packs at once.

I actually bought one from a co...I won't mention who, it was a 35a 500w supply...perfect, right! There was an error at the warehouse as far as the stock # goes and after sending 3 BACK I basically told them to **** off. I went so far as to take a picture of the one I wanted w/all the technical info on it...I sent it in and they still got it wrong!

[magman]

Here is one I was considering
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817339024

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowIm...Power%20Supply


Not bad 30a and 650w

An even bigger one..52 a and 650w

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005

[hoober]

Originally Posted by What's_nitro?

That's ridiculous. How did you test it? At that price I'd think it was defective.

I used my cba to pull current thru it increasing until it finally kicked off. Backed it down and then increased. I thik it was 25 amps or so. I know I wrote it down, would have to go look it up.

I think it was supposed to be a 360 watt, but wrote 300 useable watts on the box. It did a nice job of maintaining voltage. I figured for $20 it was still a decent deal.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by hoober

I used my cba to pull current thru it increasing until it finally kicked off. Backed it down and then increased. I thik it was 25 amps or so. I know I wrote it down, would have to go look it up.

I think it was supposed to be a 360 watt, but wrote 300 useable watts on the box. It did a nice job of maintaining voltage. I figured for $20 it was still a decent deal.

I would say so, 20 bucks sounds good to me. Hopefully the unit I just bought will work. I can sell my other power supply, and free up some room on the bench...

[mriccucci]

This one is SWEET
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153070

I used an earlier revision of this unit to build a supply a while ago. Preformed well. steady 12v due to the usage for the higher end video cards. This ones a little much but its like a 60a total output on this power supply.

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by mriccucci

This one is SWEET
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153070

I used an earlier revision of this unit to build a supply a while ago. Preformed well. steady 12v due to the usage for the higher end video cards. This ones a little much but its like a 60a total output on this power supply.

That one has two 12v rails, so each one probably has around half the total. I kinda like the 52A model posted above by magman (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005) because it is a single rail supply. In either case, I would definitely open it up and replace the small wire bundles with 12GA or 10GA wire soldered directly to the PCB. I wonder what kind of tricks can be done to these to boost the 12v to something closer to 14v?

[mistercrash]

Years ago I had a Rivergate 30 amp power supply. At that time it was said they were the best for our use in the hobby. They're a bit pricey compared to others you can find on the web but I have never heard of anyone who used them not absolutely love them.

http://www.rivergatedist.com/PowerSupply.htm

BrianG maybe you can chime in on them if you know about them.

[What's_nitro?]

Originally Posted by hoober

I used my cba to pull current thru it increasing until it finally kicked off. Backed it down and then increased. I thik it was 25 amps or so. I know I wrote it down, would have to go look it up.

I think it was supposed to be a 360 watt, but wrote 300 useable watts on the box. It did a nice job of maintaining voltage. I figured for $20 it was still a decent deal.

So they mislabeled the box?

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by mistercrash

Years ago I had a Rivergate 30 amp power supply. At that time it was said they were the best for our use in the hobby. They're a bit pricey compared to others you can find on the web but I have never heard of anyone who used them not absolutely love them.

http://www.rivergatedist.com/PowerSupply.htm

BrianG maybe you can chime in on them if you know about them.

I don't personally have experience with them, but they look really nice. And the capability to set them to 14.2v is really nice too. As you know, a little extra voltage reduces the current required for a given power draw (10A @ 12v is the same as 8.45A @ 14.2v).

If I was gonna get one, I'd get the 90A model: http://www.rivergatedist.com/bulldog_90.htm It would be nice to have one supply at the track to feed several chargers at once. One large PS is gonna be more efficient than several smaller ones usually. Actually, it would be nice for the larger tracks to have a couple of these on-hand.

This comment in that linked page is funny: "if you need more power than this buy a welder".

Looks aren't everything, but you can get a pretty good indication of whether the supply will handle what it is spec'd at from looking at the guts. Large capacity filter caps, large gauge wire on the transformer/coils, large heatsink (even at 80% eff, the heatsink will need to dissipate some power and you can extrapolate some data merely by size), and transistors/FETs that will deliver (according to datasheet). Of course, a company could use adequate looking parts and not deliver the performance, but it wouldn't make much sense to go to the expense of using beefy parts and cheap out at the end.