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    Hard Drive Power Supplies

    You know you've used them at least once or twice in the past... The quick and dirty way to power up an HDD by using one of those cheap Chinese switching brick adapters that may have come as part of an IDE to USB kit...

    Here is an amateur examination of two different Chinese adapters. First we have the "GX26W-5-12", a very common model that comes with the aforementioned kits:



    Next is the "Yu Feng" JYCC-168:


    Both very similar in advertised spec, aside from the slight difference in the amperes rating.



    On the right we have the Yu Feng, on the left, the GX26W. This picture speaks for itself (Sorry about the lighting, I really ought to get a decent lamp for this sort of thing instead of trying to aim a flashlight while taking the photo). The Yu Feng has excellent input protection (X cap, Y-Cap, choke, high quality fuse). The secondary is a world ahead of the no name brand adapter. Compare the following: Tiny transformer, cost cutting 4 diode rectification, cheap glass fuse, and lack of coils for the filtering caps.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the two diodes in its secondary are being used to inexpensively step down the voltage to 12V and 5V, whereas the Yu Feng has two actual full fledged seperate transistors on the secondary heatsink (One is YG902, other's markings are obstructed by caps). The transistor attached to the side heatsink says "STK" on it, which I assume is a Sanken part (Can't make out the rest, which is blocked by the transformer).

    In case you're wondering, the lone transistor attached partially to the tiny "heatsink" on the GX26W is a Fairchild 2N60.

    The cheap adapter's wires are much flimsier and skinnier than the Yu Feng, and its cord lacks a ferrite core. When it's plugged in the wall, the AM radio gets a lot of static.

    The only complaints I have with the Yu Feng are the quality of the caps (Nicon for the primary, and "SWCON" for the rest), and the fact that since this came from an old USB2 external enclosure, it's not a molex connector (Which means I'll have to do some splicing).

    Lesson learned: Don't blindly use cheap Chinese adapters, the can destroy your equipment, but at the same time, don't discount all Chinese products as junk, the manufacturers can produce high quality products if they want to, but even then, crack it open and change the caps to make sure it lasts forever.
    "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

    -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

    #2
    Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

    The two rectifier diodes in TO-220 case mounted on the U shape heat sink of the Yu Feng are Common Cathode rectifier diodes for 5V winding and 12V winding of the transformer, sure looks like better built.
    Never stop learning
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    Comment


      #3
      Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

      This is a great post.

      You would be surprised how many poeople buy nice high end Seasonic, Corsair, etc. PSUs then use shitty external enclosures or docks!

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

        just plug that noname into a quantum bigfoot, it will blow that thing sky high!
        Last edited by goontron; 02-13-2014, 09:42 PM.
        Things I've fixed: anything from semis to crappy Chinese $2 radios, and now an IoT Dildo....

        "Dude, this is Wyoming, i hopped on and sent 'er. No fucking around." -- Me

        Excuse me while i do something dangerous


        You must have a sad, sad boring life if you hate on people harmlessly enjoying life with an animal costume.

        Sometimes you need to break shit to fix it.... Thats why my lawnmower doesn't have a deadman switch or engine brake anymore

        Follow the white rabbit.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

          Originally posted by goontron View Post
          just plug that into a quantum bigfoot, it will blow that thing sky high!
          Hey, those drives seem to work forever!

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

            Originally posted by shovenose View Post
            Hey, those drives seem to work forever!
            got 2 on a RAID card in my main rig. winXP runs pis-poor from them, but with linux i can even watch flash videos.
            Things I've fixed: anything from semis to crappy Chinese $2 radios, and now an IoT Dildo....

            "Dude, this is Wyoming, i hopped on and sent 'er. No fucking around." -- Me

            Excuse me while i do something dangerous


            You must have a sad, sad boring life if you hate on people harmlessly enjoying life with an animal costume.

            Sometimes you need to break shit to fix it.... Thats why my lawnmower doesn't have a deadman switch or engine brake anymore

            Follow the white rabbit.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

              I wouldn't consider the one on the right a quality product.

              The capacitors are practically glued to the to220 rectifiers, the heatsink is barely adequate, transistor/mosfet on the primary side is screwed in the corner of the metal sheet, as if the heat will spread all the way to the other side efficiently . Both have that horrible pcb that has copper on only one side, all through hole. They could have put the bridge rectifier on the heatsink with the transistor/mosfet on the primary side, flip the common mode chock 90 degrees, put the capacitor vertically, and voila.. plenty of space available.

              Old designs, low frequency stuff, bad layout...

              Sigh.. you can get a VIPER50A for less than 2$ in quantity and put it on a trip of metal on one side and configure it to do 12v 3A or something like that.
              Put the schottky diode and a 5.2v (to account for voltage loss on cable) 2A dc-dc converter on the other side on a long strip of metal. Done.
              5-6$ for everything but the transformer, which in chine can't be more than 1-2$.

              But I guess the parts costs less than 1$ in these shitty power supplies, probably all overstock or parts barely meeting specs.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                I have a "Fineness Power" brick (and an identical "Flypower", but I lost that one). It's very similar if not identical to the Yu Feng. Even the label is the same, just with a different brand on it. I would sort of like to know who is actually making these.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                  i just junked a bunch of these.
                  one was a "flypower"
                  pack it with shit and let the flies generate the power?
                  several had no english but the voltages.scary inside!
                  90-260vac trace 1/8" from 5v to the led!
                  several were still in sealed bags!
                  tossed them when i should have loaded them to spec and watched them explode.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                    Are there any power supplies for hard drive enclosures or IDE/SATA to USB "adapters" that aren't junk?

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                      Originally posted by lti View Post
                      Are there any power supplies for hard drive enclosures or IDE/SATA to USB "adapters" that aren't junk?
                      I think the NewEgg Rosewill brand always includes a UL-approved power supply, some Vantecs do, but probably no Byteccs do. Here's the PSU that came with my Bytecc and some Vantecs. No safety approvals, the 3-prong AC socket has no connection to its ground prong, no line filter, and apparently no protection. Oddly, the little blue disk capacitor that goes between the output side and the high voltage side is Y-rated, unlike the one in the UL approved supply included with my Western Digital USB disks. My first Bytecc supply burned out after about a year (high voltage MOSFET shorted), and Bytecc sent a replacement that was an even cheaper version (but those single diodes in place of the pairs are still Schottkys) , also with no ground prong connection:
                      Attached Files

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                        My friend has one like the GX26W in his repair shop that he used for powering some desktop drives to read data off of them every once in a while. But after many drives refused to spin up with that piece of turd, he started using a crappy $10 Logisys power supply he had on hand. That worked okay for the task until I repaired a nice HiPro unit for him... But yeah, when you have to "upgrade" to a cheap Logisys power supply to make something work, that must mean a lot!

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                          im going to pick up one of these soon. it comes with a 2amp nameplate even though its more like 300ma with ripple is spec. i will see how far i can load it. i will record the whole thing too.
                          Things I've fixed: anything from semis to crappy Chinese $2 radios, and now an IoT Dildo....

                          "Dude, this is Wyoming, i hopped on and sent 'er. No fucking around." -- Me

                          Excuse me while i do something dangerous


                          You must have a sad, sad boring life if you hate on people harmlessly enjoying life with an animal costume.

                          Sometimes you need to break shit to fix it.... Thats why my lawnmower doesn't have a deadman switch or engine brake anymore

                          Follow the white rabbit.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                            Originally posted by mariushm View Post
                            Sigh.. you can get a VIPER50A for less than 2$ in quantity and put it on a trip of metal on one side and configure it to do 12v 3A or something like that.
                            Put the schottky diode and a 5.2v (to account for voltage loss on cable) 2A dc-dc converter on the other side on a long strip of metal. Done.
                            That would be nice. I would even take one that doesn't use the IC if they output 12V and use some kind of regulator for 5V.
                            Originally posted by goontron View Post
                            im going to pick up one of these soon. it comes with a 2amp nameplate even though its more like 300ma with ripple is spec. i will see how far i can load it. i will record the whole thing too.
                            I was looking at one of those. It's good to know that the power supply sucks.

                            I have wanted one of those adapters for a long time. There are USB 3.0 adapters now, but they cost so much more that I don't want to get one and have to buy a separate power supply. Most of the USB 3.0 adapters include a 12V-only power supply, so they probably get 5V from the USB port.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                              Originally posted by lti View Post


                              I was looking at one of those. It's good to know that the power supply sucks.

                              I have wanted one of those adapters for a long time. There are USB 3.0 adapters now, but they cost so much more that I don't want to get one and have to buy a separate power supply. Most of the USB 3.0 adapters include a 12V-only power supply, so they probably get 5V from the USB port.
                              other than that the adapters are good. you can even issue commands like idle-unload and standby-immediate and they will reach the drive. it doesn't say it supports linux, but even linux 2.2 (as far as i've tested it) supports its chipset.
                              Things I've fixed: anything from semis to crappy Chinese $2 radios, and now an IoT Dildo....

                              "Dude, this is Wyoming, i hopped on and sent 'er. No fucking around." -- Me

                              Excuse me while i do something dangerous


                              You must have a sad, sad boring life if you hate on people harmlessly enjoying life with an animal costume.

                              Sometimes you need to break shit to fix it.... Thats why my lawnmower doesn't have a deadman switch or engine brake anymore

                              Follow the white rabbit.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                                Originally posted by mariushm View Post
                                I wouldn't consider the one on the right a quality product
                                ...
                                Both have that horrible pcb that has copper on only one side, all through hole.
                                I suppose I should have posted a pic of the underside of the Yu Feng as well. That SOIC in the top right corner is a Chinese branded 3843A.



                                The capacitors are practically glued to the to220 rectifiers<snip>
                                This is meant to power a single HDD at a time, strictly for retrieving data, a task that would take an hour at the most. If I were doing a ghost, I would open up the case and attach the HDD to the PSU because I need native access. There's no reason to base a suppy for such a simple task on a 'doctorate design'. This is more than adequate for its intended use.
                                "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

                                -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                                  Originally posted by mariushm View Post
                                  I wouldn't consider the one on the right a quality product.

                                  The capacitors are practically glued to the to220 rectifiers, the heatsink is barely adequate, transistor/mosfet on the primary side is screwed in the corner of the metal sheet, as if the heat will spread all the way to the other side efficiently . Both have that horrible pcb that has copper on only one side, all through hole. They could have put the bridge rectifier on the heatsink with the transistor/mosfet on the primary side, flip the common mode chock 90 degrees, put the capacitor vertically, and voila.. plenty of space available.
                                  There is no need to heatsink a rectifier handling less than 1/10th of an amp. Similarly with the rest of the design, all it has to do is supply a couple amps peak output at HDD spin-up, with the cheap caps being the likely early failure point.

                                  It might even be overbuilt for the application except that the size of the transformer limits it. Consider it may average 7W output, then contrast a consumer grade PSU capable of 500W output. Is the latter built with 70X more heatsinking and current capability? In the transformer yes but not the rest.
                                  Last edited by 999999999; 02-19-2014, 10:43 PM.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                                    mine developed a primary to secondary short and zapped the living shit out of me today. found carbon traces on the underside of the board.
                                    Things I've fixed: anything from semis to crappy Chinese $2 radios, and now an IoT Dildo....

                                    "Dude, this is Wyoming, i hopped on and sent 'er. No fucking around." -- Me

                                    Excuse me while i do something dangerous


                                    You must have a sad, sad boring life if you hate on people harmlessly enjoying life with an animal costume.

                                    Sometimes you need to break shit to fix it.... Thats why my lawnmower doesn't have a deadman switch or engine brake anymore

                                    Follow the white rabbit.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                                      Maybe I should make my own power supply. I don't have a computer I can use for cloning or copying files from drives. Cloning a 500GB drive over USB 2.0 will take a while.

                                      I have a DVD recorder power supply with switched 5V and 12V outputs for the PC DVD burner it used. I don't know how much ripple the outputs have, but it will handle 2A on both outputs without blowing up if I put a heat sink on the 12V regulator and point a fan at it.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Re: Hard Drive Power Supplies

                                        You can get one of these : http://www.digikey.com/product-detai...891-ND/2057040

                                        and add a dc-dc converter to get 5v out of 12v, something like this : http://www.digikey.com/product-detai...6-5-ND/2259781

                                        Just move everything into another case, so you won't have mains connectors exposed and you're done.

                                        ... or you know, just get a decent transformer like this one : http://www.digikey.com/product-detai...1075-ND/242519 , two bridge rectifiers (or 8 diodes), four capacitors and two linear regulators and you're in business.
                                        Last edited by mariushm; 02-20-2014, 12:10 PM.

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