PicoPSU faulty? 2 dead adapters

Scottland · 23 Jul 2015 at 15:29

Hi,

The power brick on my HTPC went a couple of days ago, so I gotten a replacement today. Tested the brick before it went in and seemed ok as the light was showing up when plugged in. Fast forward 10 mins, and I've installed the power brick into the TV cabinet and turned it on - no light.

Is it possible that the PicoPSU is responsible somehow? I don't want to go through a string of power bricks if it's the PSU that is causing it. It could just be a coincidence as the power brick is a cheapish Chinese jobby.

Any ways I can test it?

Tealc · 23 Jul 2015 at 21:15

It rather depends on what equipment you have.

The minimum would be a multimeter.

You'd need a way to load the power supply, say a fan or two and going up to a heater or a couple of car headlamps in parallel.

You'd want to check voltage regulation, that is how well the 12v (or whatever voltage) remains close to 12v. You'd also want to see ripple. You can do this with a multimeter in AC voltage but an oscilliscope would be better as a multimeter probably wouldn't be fast enough.

Or you could buy a half way decent power brick. It would also likely be made in China, a lot of things are.

Scottland · 24 Jul 2015 at 10:28

To be honest, what I'm concerned about is buying another power brick and it blowing the power brick. So is it even possible for it to blow the power brick just by plugging it in, or is it more likely it was just a faulty brick and a co-incidence?

Tealc · 24 Jul 2015 at 13:17

So the replacement power brick was a suitable replacement? Correct voltage and equal or higher current provision?

Scottland · 24 Jul 2015 at 13:45

The previous one was 12v and 10A, was working fine for about 18months or longer. The replacement was the same - 12v 10A. I'm thinking it could be the power brick to be honest, I plugged the brick into the wall this morning and power LED lit up, as soon as the connector was plugged into the port on the back of the case it went off again.

I've got a normal ATX PSU powering the machine at the moment, with no issues - so I don't think it's a grounding issue or anything.

Tealc · 25 Jul 2015 at 13:21

Maybe the replacement was a bit pants then. Is 10A sufficient for your load? What sort of load are you getting on start up?

Maybe uprate to 15A to allow for additional draw or dodginess of Chinese supplies.