I was going to do a little research and sorting, and then examine what I had left more thoroughly. The Zumax is a featherweight so I will probably take the cables, if they aren't too thin, and connectors.

Edit: That's annoying, the Zumax has (it says) 30A on the 5V rail. 🙁 It's heavier than I remembered. Well, I'll take it apart, maybe I can do a slow amateur circuit analysis. Mind you, if I'm going to build from scratch I don't really need to do that, but I might squeeze some bits into my grey matter. At first glance it looks pretty skint. Looks like an old cheap radio in there.

EditEdit: OMG the fuse is wrong, there's no filtering on the 12V rail, a third of the design components seem to be missing (including part of the main filtering) - I don't mean they were removed, I mean it was *designed* half okay and then built out of spit and bailing wire. I *might* re-use the case, fans, and cables for one of my "stuff a completely new set of guts in it" project, because, well, the holes seem mostly in the right places.

The Mitac is matched with the original motherboard. I might recap it or more if that mobo is going to see use. It's aK6-2 233 IIRC. Funky layout, and of course the three power connectors.

The Codegen - like I say, it might be worth a refit. I haven't had it apart yet.

The Power Man is fairly hefty, but I haven't done any research on it. A few minutes looking suggests it's an In-Win, it's decent but mid-tier at best, Active PFC, OCP, but low efficiency at higher power levels and the ventilation is not great so caps up against the side tend to age prematurely.

I took photos of and cataloged 5 AT (or pseudo), 26 ATX, and 6 SFX PSUs, which is most of what I have not in cases. There is a theoretically great PC Power & Cooling PSU that I think killed a system, so until I can seriously load test it it's on the outs. I have about 30 in cases, some OEM, some commercial.

Yeah it's pretty ridiculous.

Weight doesn't tell you everything.

It's not a witch.

Merovign wrote:

one of the fun oddball post-AT and pre-ATX PSUs with an extra AT power plug and no switch.

That's not "extra" AT plug, that's 3.3v plug for PCI.

I had a Thermaltake Butterfly 480W PSU at one time. I think there was one reviewer that had this PSU explode on the test bench.

Mine worked well for several years, and when it finally died, no components were damaged.

Merovign wrote on 2022-04-03, 08:29:

I was going to do a little research and sorting, and then examine what I had left more thoroughly. The Zumax is a featherweight so I will probably take the cables, if they aren't too thin, and connectors.

Edit: That's annoying, the Zumax has (it says) 30A on the 5V rail. 🙁 It's heavier than I remembered. Well, I'll take it apart, maybe I can do a slow amateur circuit analysis. Mind you, if I'm going to build from scratch I don't really need to do that, but I might squeeze some bits into my grey matter. At first glance it looks pretty skint. Looks like an old cheap radio in there.

EditEdit: OMG the fuse is wrong, there's no filtering on the 12V rail, a third of the design components seem to be missing (including part of the main filtering) - I don't mean they were removed, I mean it was *designed* half okay and then built out of spit and bailing wire. I *might* re-use the case, fans, and cables for one of my "stuff a completely new set of guts in it" project, because, well, the holes seem mostly in the right places.

It's kinda like designing a car with airbags and then not actually implementing the airbags 😜

The Mitac is matched with the original motherboard. I might recap it or more if that mobo is going to see use. It's aK6-2 233 I […]
Show full quote

The Mitac is matched with the original motherboard. I might recap it or more if that mobo is going to see use. It's aK6-2 233 IIRC. Funky layout, and of course the three power connectors.

The Codegen - like I say, it might be worth a refit. I haven't had it apart yet.

The Power Man is fairly hefty, but I haven't done any research on it. A few minutes looking suggests it's an In-Win, it's decent but mid-tier at best, Active PFC, OCP, but low efficiency at higher power levels and the ventilation is not great so caps up against the side tend to age prematurely.

I took photos of and cataloged 5 AT (or pseudo), 26 ATX, and 6 SFX PSUs, which is most of what I have not in cases. There is a theoretically great PC Power & Cooling PSU that I think killed a system, so until I can seriously load test it it's on the outs. I have about 30 in cases, some OEM, some commercial.

Yeah it's pretty ridiculous.

You must have a ton of cases 😋

Personally I'm not really that worried about low efficiency. Especially during winters it doesn't really matter.
If you don't like the fan inside a PSU, you should be able to just replace it with a different fan.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-04-03, 10:36:

It's kinda like designing a car with airbags and then not actually implementing the airbags 😜

Or seatbelts.

Or doors.

You must have a ton of cases 😋

Umm, yes. I'm gonna go with yes. Slowly getting rid of some, hope to have it manageable by Summer.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-03, 09:34:

Weight doesn't tell you everything.

It's not a witch.

For years I've been half expecting the Chinese to catch on that people notice that poor quality power supplies tend to be very light by adding a small concrete block to the inside bottom of very cheap ones.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-04-03, 21:02:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-03, 09:34:

Weight doesn't tell you everything.

It's not a witch.

For years I've been half expecting the Chinese to catch on that people notice that poor quality power supplies tend to be very light by adding a small concrete block to the inside bottom of very cheap ones.

Think they're trying that with some of their knockoff power tools.

Seriously though, these ~ $50 retail or more likely $20 OEM wholesale items have a pretty low "revenue density" by volume, as it is. Meaning you can fit only so many into the average shipping container.
Adding weight would make that worse.
AFAIK, companies like Samsung started to produce their budget TVs for the Euro market in eastern Europe in the last years, due to rising wages in China and rising shipping rates.

But, what makes a PSU less heavy? Thin sheet metal case, for sure. Think I have AT cases here with a solid mm of armor.
General lack of stabilizing components, sure.
But also, those large aluminium heatsinks. Heatsinks don't need to be heavy, they need a large surface. Less of them can mean more sophisticated shape, bad cooling or simply more efficient components, just as well.

Is it overly simplistic to think Chinese goods are shipped to Europe over land?

chris2021 wrote on 2022-04-03, 21:37:

Is it overly simplistic to think Chinese goods are shipped to Europe over land?

By quite a stretch. In general, a 10000 TEU ship with a crew of ten and slow cruise with last decade's oil price is hard to beat.

But it's actually not clear cut in any way - they're partly working towards land connections via the "belt and road" initiative, also dubbed the "new silk road".
Wonder how that's working out these days, considering the endeavors of their buddy Vlad...

Yes but according to thr LaRouche PAC thr BnR initiative will bring.prosperity (and undoubtedly loads of China made shittiness) to all the remote villages of the world.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-04-03, 21:02:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-03, 09:34:

Weight doesn't tell you everything.

It's not a witch.

For years I've been half expecting the Chinese to catch on that people notice that poor quality power supplies tend to be very light by adding a small concrete block to the inside bottom of very cheap ones.

That already happened. I've heard of several cheap and nasty PSUs whose passive PFC coil was a brick of concrete wrapped in transformer tape.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/fake-pfc-made-of-cement/

Found these two while cleaning:

What does the mighty council of VOGONS think?
Kill em or spare em?
The bottom one is super lightweight. The other is heavier.

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-04-18, 18:56:

Found these two while cleaning: IMG_7029.JPG What does the mighty council of VOGONS think? Kill em or spare em? The bottom one i […]
Show full quote

Found these two while cleaning:
IMG_7029.JPG
What does the mighty council of VOGONS think?
Kill em or spare em?
The bottom one is super lightweight. The other is heavier.

Thou shalt put it on thy largest scales and if it isset the same weight as of a duck, thy shalt burn it at the stake, as it pleaseth thy LORD!

That lightweight at least claims to have some features, ultra strong 5 V and clearly indicates it has a temperature controlled fan so it's definitely not the cheapest of garbage. And actually, as far as China trash goes, Golden Field is in fact a rather well known and old brand:
https://en.goldenfield.com.cn/english/Company-Profile.htm

The other one, well, it's heavy, so what do you want?
https://youtu.be/lX0MB7pJtKs?t=9

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-04-18, 18:56:

Found these two while cleaning: IMG_7029.JPG What does the mighty council of VOGONS think? Kill em or spare em? The bottom one i […]
Show full quote

Found these two while cleaning:
IMG_7029.JPG
What does the mighty council of VOGONS think?
Kill em or spare em?
The bottom one is super lightweight. The other is heavier.

I'd say open them up and have a look 😜
But tbf both look sus to me particularly if it's a gutless wonder.

The CRS might be decent but might also need a recap. That label looks pretty similar to Macron Power's PSUs, which usually were decent build wise but had an atrocious cap choice.

I don't bother with any old AT/ATX power supply. Right into the trash they go on sight. Don't need those bombs in my house (mega exaggeration but you never know).

If you can recap them though, i'm sure its fine! Better then paying $70 for a new ATX and an adapter every time you need one i guess.

Macrons were as good as some of the older Bestec/FSP units as far as I remember, that's why I would keep it and recap it.

Nowhere near as stuffed in components but the quality is rather high with those. The secondary side caps are its weak point (that, and maybe sometimes the fan, though most of them used good SuperRed fans).

Here's a photo (credit goes to Pentium4 on BCN forums for the photo) that shows a Macron inside. This one is a 300W Macron MPT-301 which had bad caps. The heatsinks look just about right for 300W, and so do the transformers and silicon. Remember, you don't need some "EXTRA THICC" heatsink for 300W of power (which is probably more than enough for even the hungriest Pentium III out there. Athlon XP...maybe not so much, but it's a YMMV in that case.)

I imagine the 250W unit posted above isn't too much different than this, maybe except the transformer possibly being smaller (EI-33 size instead of ERL-35) but otherwise about similar in design.

TL;DR the CRS unit is the one I would keep, the other one doesn't look too convincing to me (unless it's a CWT-built unit, in which case I take anything bad I said about it back.) but the CRS definitely looks solid for its age, and the 5V rail doesn't disappoint either.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:17:

But tbf both look sus to me particularly if it's a gutless wonder.

Yeah, to me as well.
That's why I was asking.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:17:

I'd say open them up and have a look 😜

That's what I did yesterday. Also cleaned them a bit.

Inside of the CRS:

PcBytes wrote on 2022-04-20, 05:36:

I imagine the 250W unit posted above isn't too much different than this

You were right.
Caps look fine.

It also had this thing attached to the top:

As far as I know this is a (passive) PFC?

Here's the inside of the Golden Field:

Caps also look fine.

Had two more PSUs in my disposal box, which I dumped in there before having a look inside.
But now I thought: "Why not have a look?"

High quality caps:


Combined with the professional soldering skills of Little Xiu from Shenzhen:


My gut feeling about those two was so right. xD

PcBytes wrote on 2022-04-20, 05:36:

Macrons were as good as some of the older Bestec/FSP units as far as I remember, that's why I would keep it and recap it.

Yeah no, I'm not gonna use el cheapo PSUs for my valuable retro hardware.
But I'm considering to add them to my Ebay inventory. I don't want to sell PSUs which are a potential risk to the users life.

CRS looks absolutely safe, and that PFC choke is as real as it gets. The Golden Field one is pretty anorexic in the heatsinking section but otherwise looks pretty decent.

The one with JEE caps I suspect is some Raidmax or something similar, and the OEM behind that one is Sun Pro. That one is to avoid at all costs.

If anything, the CRS would make for a good testing PSU. It seems it's been lightly used, if at all, actually.