Alright, time to examine a “LED power supply” that probably won’t kill me
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Discussion
Paging @s0 to the mains electrical crimes phone. Did I miss anything?
@jpm looks great! I also check for clearances & insulation between the underside of the board and the chassis, that it won’t become a spark gap, and no dangling solder. But that one seems pretty great for the price, and Mean Wells are always good
No real distinguishing marks, labels, logos, etc.
I grabbed this one in particular because the video appeared to show the necessary line-side safety components. Yeah it’s #StraightOuttaShenzen
@jpm What's the difference between an "LED driver" and a DC power supply?
@elronxenu I would expect an LED driver to be a PWM chopper to improve efficiency and depend on human persistence of vision to fill in the gaps. @jpm
As the video shows, it’s an extruded aluminium case that’s very common on these kinds of power supplies. Push the sides in and the top pops off.
And that’s what I spied on the video - a big yellow X-class safety capacitor across the input, and right next to it is a 2A thermal fuse. As a bonus, the blue capacitors behind it appear to be Y-class safety capacitors too!
There’s even a milled trench underneath the third Y-class capacitor to separate the line-voltage and ultra-low voltage areas
Better view of the printing on that Y-class capacitor
@jpm is that a dry joint on the blue cap's right leg or just a trick of the light?
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As for the rest of the board, there’s some kind of coating across everything that makes it all very hard to identify. But it’s pretty unexciting - a full-bridge diode set, switching controller, and either a MOSFET or voltage regulator on the output side.
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@jpm UL logo written in crayon ✅
@jpm I would take my metal screwdriver and place it across the two terminals
@jpm How do you validate a part is what it claims to be while integrated like that?
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