Garbage Power Supplies

D_Harris

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I picked up a couple of new "Power Switch Corp" power supplies years ago. The first one died after only a couple days and the second one was dead from the beginning.

I don't know if any one else has had any experience with them, but before I throw them out I thought I'd ask.(See images).

(I figure I can at least save the screws). :D

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 

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I picked up a couple of new "Power Switch Corp" power supplies years ago. The first one died after only a couple days and the second one was dead from the beginning.

I don't know if any one else has had any experience with them, but before I throw them out I thought I'd ask.(See images).

(I figure I can at least save the screws). :D

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

They're more than 20 years old... My guess would be bad caps.
 
They were brand new when I got them 8 or 9 years ago.

I assumed that since they are a no-name brand they were just of poor quality.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Ah, but they have 1990 date codes on them. They must have sat on the shelves for quite awhile.

Ed
 
They were brand new when I got them 8 or 9 years ago.

I assumed that since they are a no-name brand they were just of poor quality.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

One more thing I noticed.
According to the labels, they appear to be setup for 230VAC on the input. Did you modify them to work with 115VAC?

Ed

Argh! Matt beat me to posting this one!
 
If they are set for 230v you should be able to switch it to 120v. Sometimes the switch will be on the outside but you may need to pop a cover off. It will either be a switch inside or a jumper that needs to be moved or sometimes cut.
 
No -5VDC output....but a -12VDC output. Kind of odd for a video game switcher.

Edward

I never had a problem with needing -5V except for when I converted a couple of Vs. Mario Bros. games back to Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. But I have to original switchers for those.

I know how they are marked, but they were still supposed to be 115V switchers. And one did work for a couple of days.

But this got me curious, so I opened it up and found nothing that would be easily resettable.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 

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Bottom of the pitcure I see the 115/ 230 Jumper.
Not sure if your switcher is set to 115 or 230...
Maybe a tighter picture would help..
 

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Bottom of the pitcure I see the 115/ 230 Jumper.
Not sure if your switcher is set to 115 or 230...
Maybe a tighter picture would help..

You right. It is switchable. And it was on 230. I moved it over to 115V, so I'll have to hook the PS up again to see if it works.

This however doesn't explain why the other one died so quickly.

BTW. Do you know the name of the single pin connector on the end of the lead that slides down over the pin?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
There maybe several reasons why your power supply didn't last very long.

Poor quality control. Some manufactures built a power supply to be cheap not well.

They cut out too many parts. Sometime in order to save money they use cheaper design (Less parts) or cheaper parts which cause power supplies to die rather quickly.

You just got the only bad one in the bunch. It just happens sometimes.

Someone sold them cheap instead of crushing them. The Orginal Manufacture had issues with these and Sold them off to be crushed and they found thier way back to the market.

If your power supply was set to 220v and you ran it at 120. it would explain why it didn't last very long.

Cold solder joint or a cracked trace. It happens even in power supplies.

They didn't clean the power supply after soldering. Rinho had a batch that had that issue.
The way they built them created solder balls. When the powersupply heated up thes solder balls will break free. Think about dropping pennies into a high volatage & High current device and see what happens.

Now these are just any old power supply and not orginal to the arcade machine your using. you may just want to but a new switcher and call it good :)
 
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