Kunkin KL283 300W (150W X2) electronic load

[dmill89]

There seemed to be some interest in the Electronic load I was using in my Solid Gear SDGR-500BX review here:https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=85860

So I thought I'd do a separate review on it.

This unit is widely available on Ebay, Amazon, etc. I paid $145 for it with this listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/30A-Dual-Ch...53.m2749.l2649 but prices may very slightly.


Here's the unit





Overall it seems like a decent unit for the price, but there is some evidence this isn't a "high-end" piece of test equipment with some minor fitment issues with the case and "cheap" feel to the buttons (a little loose in the cutouts).




Internally the build quality seems pretty decent, especially given the price point with nice beefy heatsinks:





The accuracy of the meters on the display also appears to be pretty good:







To give this unit a real test I pulled out my PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W and hooked the 12V rail (rated at 60A max) to the KL283. Given the 300W rating I was expecting the tester to cap me at 12.5A per channel since I was using 12V, but surprisingly I let me pull the full 15A per channel (30A total) without issue (note: each channel uses 3 IRFP250M FETs rated at 200V/30A):




Exhaust Temperature was 102.5F (39.2C) with an 80F (26.6C) ambient Temperature.






Overall this seems like a pretty good electronic load for the price (granted since I just got it I can't comment on long-term durability), especially if you want a "proper" piece of test equipment rather than those cheap looking and somewhat fragile "loose PCB" electronic loads.

[stj]

Re: Kunkin KL283 300W (150W X2) electronic load

i knew that looked familiar!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_fIH9pA2bY

[dmill89]

Re: Kunkin KL283 300W (150W X2) electronic load

i knew that looked familiar!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_fIH9pA2bY

Looks like the same basic design, but on the KP184 you get a more advanced control panel and I/O ports (and of course higher wattage rating as the KL284 would be the 400W dual channel version), but loose dual channels.

[momaka]

Re: Kunkin KL283 300W (150W X2) electronic load

Nice!
For a sub-$150 lab precision instrument, it's not a bad deal at all. Hopefully it lasts, though I don't see any reason why it shouldn't. After all, it did survive the full 15 Amp load on both channels. Thus, whatever MOSFETs they used inside are either genuine or at least capable of handling the load. And looking at the internal pictures, I do see a linear transformer, which I presume is for powering the electronics. Therefore with no SMPS inside for the electronics, I think at worst you might have to recap the linear PSU outputs eventually... but that may not be in at least 5-10 years, as linear PSUs don't stress caps much. As such, even crap cap brands tend to last a long time.

My Aoyue 2600 soldering station is still using its original crap caps inside (some shady "JL"-branded caps with Rubycon ZLH sleeves on top - definitely dodgy!) Never skipped a beat ever since I got it in 2012 - that's 8 years ago now. And I do use it fairly often.

So congrats on the purchase and hope it serves you well.

P.S. I suspect we will see more crap PSUs tested in the future.
Maybe even get an explosion out of one of them?