We decided to disassemble this power supply to see how it looks like inside, what is the design used and what components are used. Please read our Anatomy of Switching Power Supplies tutorial to understand how a power supply works inside and to compare this power supply to others.
In this page we will have an overall look, while on the next page we will discuss in details the quality and rating of the components used.
We can point out several differences between this power supply and a very low-end (a.k.a. “generic”) one: the construction quality of the printed circuit board (PCB); the use of more components on the transient filtering stage; the power rating of all components; the design; etcetera.
On Figures 7 and 8 you can have an overall look from inside this power supply.
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Figure 7: Inside WinPower 480 W.
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Figure 8: Inside WinPower 480 W.
On Figure 8 you can see a thermal sensor connected to the secondary heatsink, which commands the power supply to shut down under an overheating situation.
As we mentioned on other articles, the first place we like to take a look when opening a power supply to have a hint about its quality is its filtering stage. The recommend components for this stage are two ferrite coils, two ceramic capacitors (Y capacitors, usually blue), one metalized polyester capacitor (X capacitor) and one MOV (Metal-Oxide Varistor). Very low-end power supplies use fewer components than that, usually removing the MOV, which is essential for cutting spikes coming from the power grid, and the first coil.
This power supply from HEC has more than the minimum recommended number of components for this stage. In addition to the above list, it uses one extra metalized polyester capacitor (X capacitor), see Figures 9 and 10.
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Figure 9: Transient filtering stage (part 1).
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Figure 10: Transient filtering stage (part 2).
A very interesting feature from this power supply is that its fuse is inside a fireproof rubber protection. So this protection will prevent the spark produced on the minute the fuse is blown from setting the power supply on fire.
Now let’s have a more detailed discussion on the components used on WinPower 480 W.
