[HN Gopher] Ultra compact GAN ATX power supply delivers up to 25...
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Ultra compact GAN ATX power supply delivers up to 250 Watts
Author : zdw
Score : 298 points
Date : 2022-05-27 02:31 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnx-software.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnx-software.com)
| bradlys wrote:
| Here's to hoping for titanium rated power supplies becoming the
| norm like GaN chargers - and for a reasonable price!
| Jaruzel wrote:
| Looking at this, makes me wish (again!) that there was a globally
| agreed colour scheme for Live/Neutral/Earth wiring....
| deepsun wrote:
| I always thought Neutral is White, Earth is Black, and Live is
| everything else (like Red).
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| Yellow & Green striped is the IEC standard for earth here in
| Europe AFAIK
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60446#Protective_earth_and.
| ..
| formerly_proven wrote:
| As usual there's the American way and the International way.
| deepsun wrote:
| Stop dividing people! I'm International, by the way :)
| Jaruzel wrote:
| Here in the UK, Neutral is blue, Earth is Yellow & Green
| striped, and Live is Brown.
|
| Unless... the wiring is over ~30 years old, in which case
| it's Black + Red for Neutral and Live.
| jbotdev wrote:
| In the US it's White for Neutral, Green for Ground, Black for
| Hot, Red also Hot (usually for the other hot/phase on 240v or
| three way lighting).
| ParksNet wrote:
| We need a new ATX standard with external power bricks and smaller
| components. Giant ATX cases are unnecessarily huge, but laptops
| are too small and noisy. There's not much of a middle ground.
| toast0 wrote:
| Like another poster said, Mini-ITX can be fairly small; I've
| got some 3.3L cases (includes a 150W power supply). My case has
| room for a 2.5" drive and a laptop optical drive (kind of,
| there's a related model that has an opening for the optical
| drive, mine just has the mounting place for it), you could get
| a smidge smaller if you omit that. There are smaller cases
| especially if you have and don't count an external power
| supply. If you do MicroATX including a MicroATX case, that's
| meaningfully smaller than ATX but there's no price premium. If
| you want to get smaller, the CPU coolers are the tricky bit,
| and I'm assuming you're ok with integrated graphics, GPUs and
| their coolers are pretty immense as well.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Mini-ITX?
| saxonww wrote:
| There's plenty of middle ground. In terms of size, you have
| Mini ITX as pointed out by another comment, and there's
| MicroATX which is perhaps more common than regular ATX. And of
| course there are several mini systems like the Mac Mini, Intel
| NUC series, and derivatives/copies of the NUC.
|
| There are a lot of case options for small Mini ITX systems, I'm
| using an NCase M1 which is a 12-13L by volume case. There are
| smaller cases, but the smaller the case, the less flexible it
| is with configurations, which is one reason they large ATX
| cases are still popular; it seems like a lot of enthusiasts
| like clear side panels and rgb light shows and so forth, and a
| tiny case isn't as exciting.
|
| There are also multiple PSU size options. The NCase M1 I
| mentioned can use a regular ATX PS, but an SFX power supply
| fits better; SFX seems like maybe half the volume of a regular
| ATX PS. There is also SFX-L, which is a bit bigger so it can
| house a larger fan. These smaller PS standards are typically
| lower power, although you can get 650W+ SFX supplies now I
| think. Silverstone and Corsair were regarded as having the best
| SFX supplies last time I was looking.
|
| Finally, there are a couple of options for external power
| bricks like you suggest. As mentioned elsewhere there is a
| PicoPSU which is a DC/DC converter the size of a 24 pin ATX
| socket. It just plugs into the ATX socket on any regular ATX-
| compatible motherboard and has some cables attached to the
| sides for peripherals. There's also the 'Thin Mini-ITX'
| standard, which is I think intended for digital signage and
| industrial stuff, but if your requirements are modest you can
| use these for a desktop also. They integrate a DC/DC converter
| and use a 19V laptop ac adapter. The ones I've seen are best
| suited to on-chip graphics and m.2/msata drives, though.
| pornel wrote:
| There are plenty of products, but they're all underwhelming.
| Form factor and position of all the key components is so
| unfortunately mismatched, that no matter how you arrange
| them, there has to be a ton of wasted space.
|
| It doesn't help much that you can have a small motherboard.
| You will need a CPU cooler stick out the middle of it, which
| already takes most of the space you have above MB's
| footprint. If you insert a GPU without a riser cable, you'll
| have to move the PSU to the side of the MB, and that's
| already almost as chonky as a regular ATX. So you're forced
| to deal with airflow-choked GPU, low-profile coolers, and no
| room for a powerful PSU.
|
| If you instead opt for an easy-to-cool CPU and no discrete
| GPU to save space, it's still a massive box for a computing
| power of a tablet.
| saxonww wrote:
| Maybe you're interested in a NUC, then.
|
| I remembered earlier there is an alternative GPU form
| factor for laptops called MXM. You can get desktop boards
| that accept these, I think they are called Micro-STX or
| Mini-STX. They are small, and the GPU is a flat module that
| plugs in more like a daughterboard than a PCI card. You're
| still looking at low-power CPU though.
|
| I'm not sure what your vision looks like, to be honest. I
| think you want a laptop without the integrated screen and
| keyboard. That's a NUC, IMO; if an integrated or laptop-
| grade GPU isn't good enough, you'd want to do eGPU over
| thunderbolt I guess.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Maybe there could be some use if the external brick could be
| standard, so you'd only have to carry the actual computer.
|
| But I personally would much prefer having to lug around a
| marginally bigger box instead of two smaller ones. Fewer cables
| to trip over, etc.
|
| Also, if the case is a bit bigger, it will probably be able to
| house a bigger cooler, so it should be quieter, if I'm looking
| for a powerful computer.
|
| If I'm OK with a regular middle of the road setup, there
| already are plenty of options from OEMs. I'm thinking HP
| Desktop Minis. Dell, Lenovo and Fujitsu also have similar
| offerings, though I'm not familiar with them. They can be a bit
| noisy under load, though.
| Nursie wrote:
| So about quarter the size of a standard SFX PSU, which is pretty
| cool. But also about a quarter the power the 'biggest' ones can
| provide.
|
| I can see this being really good for (for instance) boxes like my
| fileserver which has a 65W TDP i3 in it and a bunch of SSDs, or
| compact media boxes that just have a processor and iGPU.
|
| Unfortunately the way things are going in the world of PCs, you
| aren't going to power much of a modern dGPU from that.
| Gigachad wrote:
| The example showing two linked together for 500w was
| interesting. This would allow more compact or oddly shaped
| desktops.
| divbzero wrote:
| s/GAN/GaN/
|
| GAN [1] happens to be a machine learning construct. 250 W of
| electrical output would be rather surprising.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Capitalization is the difference between "I helped my Uncle
| Jack off a horse" and ...
| oriolid wrote:
| I was totally expecting hardware designed by GAN :) Using
| genetic algorithms for hardware design is already old trick.
| paulmd wrote:
| scoff all you want, this was the plot of The Matrix!
|
| (the original script was written with the sensible "using
| humans as a biological computer" angle but they worried
| audiences wouldn't get that newfangled computer thing in the
| basically prehistoric year of 1999, so they changed it to be
| humans generating power which... isn't how thermodynamics
| works!)
| prutschman wrote:
| "But that's crazy, Morpheus. Thermodynamics says.."
|
| "And where did you learn about physics, Neo?"
|
| "..... In the Matrix...."
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| You could have combined it with Idiocracy - all the people in
| the Matrix act slow and dumb because most of their brainpower
| is being used to run weather simulations or whatever you'd do
| with a world-wide supercomputer.
| strbean wrote:
| Damn, that would have been much cooler!
| javajosh wrote:
| The cables are bigger than the PSU. Has anyone ever experimented
| with putting edge connectors on a motherboard PCB for power? And
| edge connector for PCI and memory and m.2? In this way you could
| build out a very flat PC with commodity parts, since all the
| components would be parallel to each other and the motherboard.
| kraftman wrote:
| You can get 90 degree adapters for the motherboard power
| connector and PCI, and low profile ram. the issue then is
| getting a low profile heatsink for the CPU. There are
| waterblocks but not many with edge ports.
|
| There are also boards like this that have the RAM mounted flat,
| a lower profile set of ports on the back, and take in 19v DC:
| https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/IMB-193
| javajosh wrote:
| _> the issue then is getting a low profile heatsink for the
| CPU_
|
| You'd have to make something custom, but I think it would be
| much simpler than typical heat sinks. With air cooling, the
| vertical placement would be ideal, since convection will tend
| to suck cool air from the bottom and release it on the top.
| (I think the iMac does/did this). Even for water cooling, it
| would be simpler with far fewer turns in the pipe. Plus, I
| just like the idea of laying everything out flat instead of
| the weird 3-D origami that is modern PC design.
| kayson wrote:
| Dell PowerEdge Servers do this. And they have 1.1kW PSUs!!
| mrb wrote:
| Indeed. Edge connectors are common on servers with hot-
| swappable PSUs.
| unwind wrote:
| Wow, didn't know they thought it was important enough of a
| feature to put it in the name of the product. :)
| c_o_n_v_e_x wrote:
| You should look at CRPS form factor power supplies, they have
| the edge connector you are referring to. ATX12VO also addresses
| the large legacy ATX connector.
| jonah-archive wrote:
| The SGI O2 was built like this (power & all bus connections
| were off an edge connector), some good pics of the mobo at:
| https://bukosek.si/hardware/collection/sgi-o2.html#pics
| jabl wrote:
| Wasn't there some upcoming PSU spec that dropped the 5 and 3.3V
| rails leaving only 12V? What happened to that?
|
| Edit: Yes, the "ATX12VO" spec.
| rocqua wrote:
| Yes, but it seems unlikely to hit consumer markets soon. It
| is mostly interesting for OEMs apparently. I hope I am wrong
| though.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Aren't OEMs already able to do pretty much what they want?
|
| I have a desktop HP that has a standard-sized PSU but has a
| weird connector that only plugs into the motherboard. The
| drives are powered from a separate connector that also
| plugs into the motherboard. And the PSU - MB connector is
| much smaller than standard ATX.
| rocqua wrote:
| HP can control the full stack. MB and PSU at the same
| time. But smaller OEMs might want to not have to
| manufacture their own totally custom components. So it
| makes sense for them to standardize. If not for
| interchangeablity then to ensure you can sell your custom
| parts to other OEMs.
| bombcar wrote:
| I know we don't need 5v for spinning drives anymore, but what
| voltage does the CPU want to see? If it's not 12V aren't we
| just moving the voltage drop equipment onto the motherboard?
| coder543 wrote:
| The VRMs for the CPU have already been on the motherboard
| for a very long time, maybe always? CPUs operate at very
| low voltages with very high amps. For a lot of reasons, it
| makes sense to keep that as close to the processor as
| possible.
| heretogetout wrote:
| Consumer CPUs these days are at around 1.4 to 1.5 volts.
| Not sure about server, but it's probably close.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| CPUs are around 1-1.2v. However, they can occasionally pull
| 100-200+W. Moving 200W at 1V means 200A. Resistive losses
| scale proportional to amperage at constant voltage, and
| inversely proportional to voltage at constant power. 200A
| needs a LOT of copper to not get blistering hot, the amount
| you would find in all the traces connecting a CPU to the
| VRMs on the motherboard, probably around 4 ounces just to
| carry the power a few inches. 200W at 12V is 16.7A, which
| can be shuttled much longer distances with less material at
| the same efficiency, in the ~foot long cable between the
| PSU and motherboard. Additionally, pluggable connectors are
| high resistance spots in the circuit unless they make very
| good contact, and susceptible to overheat and melt when
| carrying too much current.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Could an EE comment on the safety of this.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Not an EE, but it's a consumer product sold through non-shady
| channels, so it's presumably very safe.
| aix1 wrote:
| Could someone ELI5 what makes GaN PSUs/chargers more efficient
| than earlier technologies?
| pjc50 wrote:
| The scientific answer appears to be "high Johnson's figure of
| Merit", for which the primary source is a 1965 journal:
| https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Site-Technical/Company...
| (you can go forwards by editing the URL)
|
| There are two factors:
|
| - you need a high breakdown voltage, so that for a given
| voltage you want to switch you can make the transistor channel
| as short as possible; shorten the physical distance that charge
| carriers have to flow in the semiconductor.
|
| - you need a high maximum drift velocity, which governs the
| rate at which charge carriers can flow through the
| semiconductor
|
| Those contribute to reducing the on-resistance of the
| transistor, thereby decreasing its heat output for a given
| size.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| It is not so much about efficency but about size.
| Galliumnitride generates less heat than silicon, so you can
| make much smaller power supplies.
| Doxin wrote:
| If I recall correctly GaN transistors also just generally are
| better in a lot of metrics. Faster switch times, Lower
| resistance, Higher permissible voltages, etc. It really does
| look like a miracle technology.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Are they good for logic (CPUs, GPUs etc) as well or just
| for power applications?
| namibj wrote:
| In theory, but they are hard to miniaturize for logic
| ICs.
| kf7njh wrote:
| I would argue probably not. GaN has a higher bandgap
| voltage (3eV iirc... 1eV for Silicon), which means a CPU
| would need to be run at a higher voltage.
|
| As a quick rule of thumb for huge transistor count ICs:
| Power (heat) = freq*Voltage^2
|
| I won't go into detail, but you can see how for a CPU
| designer decreasing voltage is critical to increasing
| speed. Remember a decade ago when CPUs were like 1.2V and
| we hit this ~3GHz "wall"? But now due to breakthroughs in
| process nodes, CPUs are running I think ~0.8V but
| boosting up to 5GHz.
|
| If we make the same CPU on a GaN process, the transistors
| would probably need ~3V to switch, and thus need to be
| run about 9x slower to meet the same package power (or I
| guess you could run it at the same speed but then try and
| figure out how to cool a 9x higher TDP CPU).
|
| Furthermore, GaN is difficult to manufacture into a
| monocrystaline perfect lattice compared to Silicon. You
| can image that for modern 7nm/5nm nodes, where there are
| sometimes angstroms of distance in a transistor, having a
| foundation full of defects can be devastating to the
| yield.
|
| Power electronics is a totally different domain with
| different challenges. In this area GaN excels, but for
| ICs I don't think it makes sense. Let's see in 20 years
| though. GaN is relatively new compared to Silicon and
| might just need some further refinement.
|
| Just my 2c though. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| Converting less of the switched energy to heat IS efficiency;
| there's no difference.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The littlebox challenge back in 2014 required 3 watts/cm^3 to
| compete...
|
| This 'ultra compqct' only offers 1.18 watts/cm^3 in 2022.
|
| While this might be the best on the market, it is far from what
| is technically possible.
| tecleandor wrote:
| But that was an inverter, so DC --> AC. But also, I don't know
| if that really makes a difference :P
| causality0 wrote:
| Is it just me or are the size benefits of GaN power supplies
| overblown? The 100w GaN type-c charger for my new laptop is less
| than ten percent lighter than the 100w charger for my decade-old
| Dell, while being six times more expensive to replace.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Isn't it a lot _smaller_ (not lighter) though? I think the main
| benefits are size and efficiency, not weight.
| causality0 wrote:
| It might be about thirty percent smaller by volume. It's not
| any more convenient to carry around because instead of being
| a candy bar shape it's perfectly square and actually wider
| than the old one. While not related to it being a GaN
| charger, it being a permanently attached type-c connector is
| a recipe for disaster considering how much more delicate it
| is than a traditional laptop charger. I'm probably going back
| to a ThinkPad for my next laptop and the charger connector is
| not an insignificant reason why.
| noobermin wrote:
| I hate to be the one but a) this means fixing these psu's are
| going to be even harder now and b) at some point people are going
| to have to worry about _energy intensity_ (W /m^2) exceeding
| values where the devices themselves will melt. That said,
| interesting tech. It feels like a lot of new tech news these days
| is just furthering gimmicks (adding "blockchain" to this or ML
| applied to something that didn't need it) but this is actually
| cool and could open a host of new applications.
| csours wrote:
| Do people fix PSUs?
| tinco wrote:
| I fixed mine once. I lived in a university town, which caused
| the small unusual circumstance that no local store had a 700W
| power supply in stock, but there was a electronic parts store
| that had the capacitor I needed to replace.
|
| Besides the capacitor only costing 10 cents and a new one
| around a hundred bucks the advantage for me was that I had
| fixed the whole thing within na hour or two including
| diagnosing the issue and the bike ride to the shop.
|
| I was back on my PC that same night, and 5 years later that
| same PSU now well over ten years old is still going strong.
| noobermin wrote:
| Yes?????????
| nwiswell wrote:
| Awesome! I've got about a hundred server power supplies
| that need fixing, what do you charge?
| londons_explore wrote:
| If you have a hundred identical power supplies that need
| fixing, they probably all have the same fault, and the
| fix will probably be 3 minutes labour + 20 cents in parts
| after the first one. That's totally worth doing.
| justahuman74 wrote:
| Too much.
|
| You fix a PSU cause you know what you're doing and have
| the time, not because it's economical to do for someone
| else
| nwiswell wrote:
| Hmm! It certainly seems like if it's worthwhile for
| anyone to do with unspecialized labor, then it would
| certainly be worth doing for a specialist.
|
| Why is it that I've never heard of a power supply repair
| technician in a data center?
| tinco wrote:
| Because data centers don't care about ewaste. It is
| cheaper to have power supplies redundant and in stock
| than it is to have a technician on retainer.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Server power supplies are expensive, and data centers
| sure do care about the bottom line.
|
| If it costs $20 to fix a $100 power supply, why would you
| replace it?
| c_o_n_v_e_x wrote:
| Actually I did a study on this (I'm a PM for a small
| server company) about a year ago with data scraped from a
| popular US based online vendor.
|
| For PSUs >1000 watts, I found that server supplies are
| cheaper both on a relative (more watts / dollar) and
| absolute cost basis than ATX form factor supplies.
| jandrese wrote:
| Aren't the >1k watt ATX power supplies usually the "gamer
| edition" ones with huge markups? They cost a lot because
| they are a small niche--very few PCs need power supplies
| that big, and the ones that do are running multiple
| wildly expensive GPUs so budget is clearly not a concern.
|
| There's probably more legitimate demand on the commercial
| side for >1kw PSUs so they can enjoy larger economies of
| scale.
| tinco wrote:
| How frequent are the failures? It costs a lot less than
| $20 to repair a broken power supply, but if you break
| less than $5000 worth of power supplies per month you're
| not breaking even on the technician not even counting the
| management overhead.
|
| I don't think small cost savings like that are going to
| be implemented simply because it makes the operation more
| complex without landing any manager a big fat bonus.
|
| Unless I'm grossly underestimating the failure rate of
| those supplies?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > It certainly seems like if it's worthwhile for anyone
| to do with unspecialized labor, then it would certainly
| be worth doing for a specialist
|
| 'Anyone' could be a penniless student and his time costs
| little, specialist may charge $40 per hour.
|
| Also even ideal free market has cost of transaction,
| discoveravility, etc.
|
| Hospitals have repair technicians, but why would you need
| one spesifically focusing on power supplies - he does not
| need different training or equipment
| tecleandor wrote:
| I don't know if you're trolling but, probably it's all
| about support contracts and liability.
|
| - If your hardware hasn't reached EOL, it's probably
| under a warranty or support contract. So you just let
| your provider swap/fix it.
|
| - If you tinker with anything and there's a problem with
| the rest of the hardware, they'll probably won't honor
| the warranty or support contract, or you could have
| problems with your insurance.
|
| If it were a home user fixing a PSU... that's a different
| thing.
| bradlys wrote:
| Clearly the 0.01% of people who have even _opened_ a PSU are
| going to chime in and say it's necessary.
|
| I've torn mine apart and replaced fans in them and such but
| I've never had to resolder any parts onto them. If a PSU dies
| - it tended to do it violently and was so cheap that it
| wasn't worth doing it. All the name brand ones I've had never
| had any issues and same for the dozens of other people I
| knew. (Or computers I worked on or built or sold to others...
| or when I did IT and saw literally thousands of computers...)
| Gigachad wrote:
| I wouldn't even consider fixing a psu. It's dangerous high
| voltage electronics so messing it up could result in a fire or
| personal harm.
|
| And they are standardised. Makes more sense to just replace
| them.
| kadoban wrote:
| I've been told they have big scary capacitors in them as
| well. Never fun trying to fix something where unplugging it
| isn't even enough to be safe.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Wait for a few minutes before opening it up, check with a
| multimeter, etc. Mains voltage isn't that scary if you
| follow basic precautions
| kadoban wrote:
| Is a few minutes enough? My impression was they could
| remain charged for long periods.
| toast0 wrote:
| How many people fix their psu vs eWaste when they stop working,
| which is usually 5+ years after they were made, unless they
| were made with unusually poor components or design?
|
| I don't necessarily need a smaller power supply, but options
| are nice.
| zepolen wrote:
| Most boards have a couple components that are on the weak
| side and fail, usually a capacitor. Any electronics shop can
| fix it for at most $20, or you can do it yourself for the
| cost of a 20 cent component though usually not worth the
| time. Beats paying $100 for a new PSU.
| tinco wrote:
| Fixing PSU's has never been hard. And actually looking at the
| board it looks like this is even easier to take a part and work
| on than the PSU I have repaired.
| torginus wrote:
| I think the chief limitation here is the ATX standard itself.
| Modern devices could make do with a single 12V rail (especially
| at this wattage), that would reduce the cabling and simplify the
| PSU circuitry as well.
|
| A lot of prebuilt OEMs and consoles and not to mention laptops
| already use this approach.
| PossiblyKyle wrote:
| On one hand, I definitely agree.
|
| On the other, my issue is that motherboards are already one of
| the least reliable components in your PC, and introducing even
| more complications to them just makes the situation (and the
| cost of replacement) worse
| bradfa wrote:
| Going to only 12V power to the motherboard doesn't actually
| make them much more complicated, or any more complicated
| really. Like half of a modern motherboard design today is
| just power supplies anyways, as all CPUs will do voltage
| scaling to save power. It's not like your CPU takes 3.3V
| input directly, most are running in the 0.8-1.5V range, even
| DDR4 is 1.2V, and the CPU is the majority of the consumption
| on the actual motherboard (high power graphics cards usually
| have their own 12V input connector, the PCIe edge cannot
| transfer enough).
| dicknuckle wrote:
| I expect motherboards could be more reliable if there was a
| standard 12v to 5v, 3.3v, 1.5v etc pluggable converter that
| they all used. It could cut down on E waste. Instead of
| having to discard an entire motherboard, the low voltage
| converter board could be swapped out and
| repaired/discarded. The same companies that make ATX power
| supplies could also make the discreet low voltage
| converters. ATX innards could be smaller, less wiring
| between components.
|
| No that's silly, we should continue to use a design from
| 1995, itself replacing a design from 1981.
| bradfa wrote:
| Well, sure that'd be nice, but it would add quite a lot
| of cost. High current carrying connectors are not free.
|
| You can buy a nice AMD Ryzen motherboard for like $80
| retail (Newegg shows $59 is where new unopened ones
| start). Normal electronics supply chain and shipping
| margins means it cost roughly half that to manufacture
| it. So on a $40 bill of materials and labor cost if you
| add even just $1 to make something
| better/modular/whatever then you're adding a significant
| amount in terms of percentage cost increase.
|
| As much as reducing electronics waste is a worthy goal,
| the economics of it aren't aligned quite yet in today's
| world.
| Ayesh wrote:
| I have a laptop that draws 240W over a square slim tip, and
| recently saw a 240W GaN power brick. Like the photo in the
| article, it's comparable to an iPhone in size, but what prevented
| me from buying it was the weight (400g) and the price ($155
| IIRC).
|
| I think the sweet spot of GaN is in wall adapters that deliver
| 18-45W over USB-A/C for mobile devices rather than PSUs where the
| size/weight doesn't matter as much.
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| I actually have a 100W GaN charger for my 100W Razer Stealth
| 13''. Super compact and great for travel. The new Razer models
| actually come with the GaN charger included!
| genewitch wrote:
| $145 is pretty steep, and I'd like to see the Vpp (also called
| ripple) before considering this. I currently use picoPSU (ASIN
| B005TWE5E6), 50W and 80W versions to power 7th and 8th gen atoms
| and celerons. I use a "UPS" style 12VDC PSU connected to a fairly
| large sealed lead acid battery - about 4x the volume of a
| standard UPS battery. As far as my measurements go with the
| induced noise from the PSU for radio reception work, it seems to
| work pretty good. I've looked at using SBCs instead, but you're
| never really going to get away from buck/boost on boards, since
| some things need 3.3 or less volts (memory, etc). The picoPSU
| also have survived for years up in elevator attics with all of
| the machinery and dust. never had an outage caused by the picoPSU
| or the attached 12V UPS stuff.
|
| I wonder if it is possible to run more than one board off the
| same PSU. I know you can run a board off multiple PSUs, but is
| the inverse true? If i ever get a new batch of these 25W TDP
| computers racked, having 2 of these connected to two UPS and 6
| computers might be cool. It's just the ATX connector that needs
| population, i use NVME whenever possible, no GPU, no cards, just
| USB and ethernet onboard.
| rektide wrote:
| > _I wonder if it is possible to run more than one board off
| the same PSU._
|
| Absolutely. There's something I can't remember about signal
| lines that need to be set up, but yet, people have been running
| multiple computers off as single supply for a long long long
| time now.
|
| Also worth warning people ahead of time, it's hard to predict
| what kind of specific power consumption a motherboard will
| have. There's so many power rails going in. 3.3V, 5V, 12V,
| -3.3V... Making sure that _each_ rail is adequately rated for
| additional motherboards can be a challenge. Ideally one would
| test each supply line, one by one, to try & figure things out,
| & compare against rated specs of the power supply.
|
| Intel's been pushing a new spec called ATX12VO, short for
| 12-volts-only, which does away with all the other rails & has
| the motherboard expect 12v. This would make it much easier to
| understand what power consumption is. I do seem to recall some
| of the new ATX specs (3.0?) also kind of expect power-consumers
| to declare how much power they expect to use, as a
| safety/planning feature, which could complicate this one easy-
| to-do hack (unless there's some way for the additional
| motherboard/motherboards to also declare their power draw).
| This might only be ATX3.0's new 12VHPWR connector, which works
| alongside PCIe 5.0-- not sure if it also impacts motherboards
| or not.
| robocat wrote:
| > Making sure that each rail is adequately rated for
| additional motherboards can be a challenge
|
| Buy a cheap inline tester and leave it always in? Something
| like: https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=Power+Supply+Tester+D
| igita...
| paulmd wrote:
| These days the 3.3v rail and -3.3v rail are practically
| vestigial (iirc the major consumer on those rails was floppy
| disk drives...) and 5V is mostly used to drive SSDs and USB
| devices. Almost everything runs off 12V these days - which is
| the whole point behind the 12VO standard, just make
| everything use 12V and step it down at the point-of-
| consumption for the handful of things that still need
| something else.
|
| So basically I wouldn't worry about motherboard compatibility
| due to 5v, 3.3v, and -3.3v rails - there just isn't much of
| anything still being done on those rails, and the things that
| do use it pretty much are the same across motherboards
| (because they're things that are _plugged into_ the
| motherboard, not the motherboard itself).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > and 5V is mostly used to drive SSDs and USB devices.
|
| The most important 5V rail is 5VSB - it powers wake-on-LAN
| and on some systems wake-via-bluetooth. The interesting
| question is, is it more efficient to _always_ let 12V- >5V
| regulators run for 5VSB or to use an extremely small
| separate regulator?
| paulmd wrote:
| > The interesting question is, is it more efficient to
| always let 12V->5V regulators run for 5VSB or to use an
| extremely small separate regulator?
|
| To complicate this further, full system power-off is not
| the only time you want to do wake-on-lan... if you want
| to wake from _system sleep_ then you have to be running
| the 12V rail anyway, because that 12V rail drives the
| VRMs which drive Vcore and Vmem. No 12V rail means you
| lose your memory and CPU state...
|
| As such I don't think you can really frame this as
| "having a separate 5V regulator with the 12v rail turned
| off", or at least that use-case must exist _in addition_
| to the deep-sleep use-case, it cannot supplant it
| entirely.
|
| Anyway though, power-supply 5V rails are usually much
| much larger than they need to be, and that has higher
| loss inside a transformer. Even if you make that a solid-
| state thing inside the transformer, moving power at 5V is
| less efficient than moving it at 12V and stepping it down
| at the point-of-consumption. So actually the answer is
| probably that it's more efficient to always run a step-
| down regulator.
| glowingly wrote:
| To be fair, something is stepping it down from AC, and
| many modern PSUs step everything down from a common DC
| rail using DC-DC conversion (i.e, 12V, 5V, 3.3V, etc are
| all generated from a source DC voltage). Then things like
| the CPU and GPU have long moved off of the 3.3V rails to
| harness the 12V rail for DC-DC conversion in various VRM
| stages, down to <<2V.
|
| My main appreciation for ATX12VO (12 volts only) is the
| MB can choose to right size the 5V and 3.3V rails
| appropriately. M.2 slots are driven from 3.3V only (even
| if M.2 devices step it up or down for their specific
| uses). A board with 4 M.2 slots will have a different
| potential 3.3V power demand than a board with only 2
| slots. Typically, a decent board will have 1 M.2 2230 A
| or E slot for WiFi, and 1-2 M.2 2280/22110 M (and rarely
| B) slots for M.2 storage. PCIe x16 lanes will have 9W of
| 3.3V, as part of their 75W total power (the remaining 66W
| is 12V).
|
| As noted earlier, 5V is heavily I/O driven. A board with
| 15 USB ports can expect to need more 5V than a stingy
| board with only 8 (both are accounting for front I/O
| headers).
|
| I'd rather the MB have to right-size the 3.3V and 5V
| rails, than forcing every PSU to include copious amounts
| of 3.3 and 5 just to cover every edge case.
|
| Sure, it's a tiny bit of potential efficiency. It's also
| passing a bit of cost from the PSU to the board itself.
| Sadly, it does seem ATX12VO's main impact will be lost.
| OEMs are going to continue with their custom PSUs with
| unique connectors and the DIY vendor + consumer market
| has largely turned their backs to this.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Can you show me what you mean by the UPS style PSU? That setup
| sounds like it would be great for keeping my mini server up
| during power outages (Xeon-D also running off of a picoPSU).
| genewitch wrote:
| sure, ASIN B00EAIG17E "DROK 110V 220V UPS Battery Backup
| Uninterruptible Switching Power Supply 12V 120W 110V-240V to
| 13.5V DC 50/60Hz with Battery Interface for Charging"
|
| When you remove mains power it switches over instantly enough
| that the computer doesn't notice. There's no serial port on
| it so the computer has no way of knowing that it's on battery
| - but it was also only $26 shipped. No wires or battery or
| anything. I happen to have a few of the trimpot breakouts
| specifically for setting voltages, so i just made sure that
| when the PC was powered it was getting the correct voltage
| without sagging below 12.2ish under load _at the output
| terminal of the PSU_. It also has a little trimpot on the
| board for adjusting the voltage.
|
| P.S. I'm not sure if Drok has a lot of knockoffs or not, i do
| know that i like that brand well enough, never had anything
| bought from them break in a weird way. I have slagged a few
| of their "waterproof" 24VDC boost converters, though!
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| it's not "that" steep once You consider the form factor and the
| technology used.
|
| Generally the most You can get from a PSU this size would be
| those forementioned USB-C PD bricks. Those would these days get
| You at max about 100W for probably not less than 50-60USD
| (cheap Chinese models, more if branded).
|
| Multiply that 2.5x (250W instead of 100W) and suddenly You're
| pretty close to the price.
| walrus01 wrote:
| GaN stuff is also used in the smallest and highest power compact
| tx power amplifiers in the rf chain for the buc/sspa on two way
| geostationary satellite terminals now. Some of the BUCs now are
| 1/3 the size of 12 years ago.
|
| Other small and dense terrestrial microwave and millimeter wave
| things use gan power amps too.
| rektide wrote:
| I was going to criticize & point out how usb-c chargers at and
| over 100W are just so small, but there's a photo comparing it to
| an iphone & ok, it looks adequately impressively dense! (I have a
| >2 year old 100W charger that is 66x64x30mm, this 250W unit is
| 170x50x25)
|
| It's been such a great synergy. Energy efficiency has been a
| concern already yes, but I really view usb-c chargers as pushing
| the consumerization & massification & development of this
| technology to the superb, common, un-exotic levels it's come down
| to. We just got tired of doing less good, actively explored
| trying to use a somewhat harder to drive switching semiconductor,
| & have reaped great rewards. Miniaturization mandated
| optimization & we all win. I really think the interchangable-
| parts/modularity & resulting competition that usb-c begot started
| this ball rolling.
|
| (Hoping USB-PD, with it's bump from 20 up to 48V, once again
| proves another huge win!)
| hangonhn wrote:
| > (Hoping USB-PD, with it's bump from 20 up to 48V, once again
| proves another huge win!)
|
| Can someone explain to me why 48V? Is there something special
| with 48V or beyond? The reason I ask is because some cars now
| have electric turbos and the manufacturer had to switch to a
| 48V system. Just curious what the benefits of higher voltage is
| and if 48 is somehow special.
|
| Thanks in advance.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| At 48v you can use much smaller gauge wire than at 12v. Which
| means lower cost, less weight and a smaller footprint for
| your wire harnesses.
|
| One of the things that can "get you" with these higher
| voltage systems is you can't use them to jumpstart the
| present majority of cars. While I've yet to actually see a
| higher voltage car, I would hope they'd put warnings by the
| battery to remind the user that "hey, don't try to jumpstart
| your friends car with this battery!"
| aparks517 wrote:
| Power is the product of current and voltage. To transfer much
| power at a low voltage requires a large current. Supporting a
| large current without getting hot and melting requires large-
| diameter wire. Other components may also be bulky or
| expensive if they have high current-handling requirements.
|
| I seem to recall that somewhere around 50 volts is a magic
| number from a safety/regulatory perspective. It might also
| have something to do with semiconductor breakdown voltage,
| but maybe I'm out of date on that.
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| My understanding is that 50V is the established threshold
| above which safety to humans starts to be a factor. So,
| applications that want high powers, without the penalty of
| large wires nor the penalty of the safety requirements of an
| HV system, converge to 48.
| avhon1 wrote:
| > the established threshold above which safety to humans
| starts to be a factor
|
| Specifically, 50 volts is approximately the threshold above
| which electricity can pass through the skin and shock you.
| Lower voltages will only shock humans if they have a way to
| bypass some of the skin, like wounds or tight-fitting metal
| jewelry. Otherwise, the resistance of skin is high enough
| to prevent the flow of electricity. That's why you can
| touch both terminals of a 12V car battery at the same time
| and almost certainly not be shocked.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| I my complaint that they are calling this atx, when the only
| thing remotely ATX about it is being designed to work with the
| atx motherboard power connector.
|
| This in no way meets the atx form factor for power supplies,
| neither the original, nor the 12V version. Like I could forgive
| it if it failed to be a rectangular prism in favor of having
| more open space, as long as it had a frame with proper mounting
| points.
|
| And I could also forgive it if they went with the rectangle,
| but far shorter than the official 140mm depth (that has always
| been mandatory per intel specs), given that the market already
| accommodates non-conforming lengths, and this could be made to
| not require the bottom of case mounting holes, allowing for
| absurdly short lengths.
|
| But the photos show none of that, and just a fully custom form
| factor, without any apparent mounting mechanism.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| The form factor and mounting design of the power supply are
| not parts of the ATX spec. The pin layout & shape, voltages,
| signaling, etc are what are specified.
|
| This is an ATX power supply. It is just designed for very
| small cases that would never be able to accommodate the
| existing standard configurations.
| D13Fd wrote:
| >The form factor and mounting design of the power supply
| are not parts of the ATX spec. The pin layout & shape,
| voltages, signaling, etc are what are specified.
|
| Did you just pull this out of nowhere?
|
| Look at ATX Specification v. 2.01 section 4.1, page 18-20.
| It specifies the " _required_ overall dimensions and
| general form factor of an ATX power supply, " with or
| without special airflow ducting (emphasis in original).
|
| The linked PSU in the OP clearly does not meet this form
| factor.
| mook wrote:
| ATX 2.2 spec seems to no longer have that; at least, the
| PDF linked from the Wikipedia article on ATX doesn't.
|
| Perhaps they removed it in a revision? That seems like a
| silly idea...
| vxNsr wrote:
| This actually looks like a server psu.
| rektide wrote:
| I'd also point to Google's Little Box Challenge[1] as an
| interesting data-point of yore.
|
| Little Box Challenge went the other direction: instead of
| taking AC and producing DC power, it was an inverter that took
| DC power and produced AC output. It had to output 2kW and be
| smaller than 655 cubic centimeters (cc's). The winning Red
| Electrical Devil's team got 3x more dense than this[2]! 240
| cc's! While inverting 2kW of juice. Second place was 340ccs.
|
| I don't know whether we'd argue this DC->AC is harder/easier
| than an ATX supply (AC->DC) (probably not?) but this was quite
| an impressive competition, almost a decade ago, that resulted
| in probably some of the most power-dense, highest-efficiency
| power conversions that humanity has ever gotten up to. For
| compare, this 250W unit is 212cc's. 8x less power conversion,
| 88% the size.
|
| The Little Box Challenge designs were published, so there's a
| ton of great reading. Alas, Google frakking let the damned site
| bitrot off the net?! Sooo, head to archive.org[3] to read the
| team's writeups. From the winning CET Red Electric Devils
| writeup:
|
| > _GaN transistors have many very interesting electrical
| characteristics (low Rds_on, low Qgate and Cds, ultra low Qrr);
| these create technological advantages over current MOSFET and
| IGBT devices (small size and low production costs).
| Unfortunately, they also have serious drawbacks due to their
| very fast switching characteristics: they are challenging to
| drive and require sensitive electromagnetic noise management.
| Another pitfall is the high voltage drop due to the reverse
| current when the GaN is turned off. The solution selected to
| overcome these difficulties is to control all the GaN
| transistors using soft switching for the entire operation
| range._
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8070215 (271 points, 8
| years ago, 138 comments)
|
| [2] https://ai.googleblog.com/2016/02/and-winner-of-1-million-
| li...
|
| [3]
| http://web.archive.org/web/20171006105655/https://littleboxc...
| elihu wrote:
| I'm doing an EV conversion, and have trouble wrapping my head
| around the idea that a motor controller that weighs about ten
| pounds or so and isn't much bigger than a loaf of bread can
| handle about 100 kilowatts of power, converting DC at around
| 140-180 volts from the battery to 3-phase AC. And that's a
| relatively low-end inverter.
| virginiadoolf wrote:
| the answer is liquid cooling. these Little Box and ATX
| power supplies have to rely on passive cooling (radiative,
| conductive, and convective) which is generally proportional
| to surface area == physical size ^ 3. if you halve the
| size, then, you lose 87.5% of the surface area! that's why
| these things can't shrink as much. but ultimately the
| silicon involved is miniscule.
| elihu wrote:
| Technically my motor controller can be passively cooled
| too, it's just not recommended. (It automatically goes
| into a low-power "limp" mode rather than burn itself
| out.)
|
| I'm not sure how much power it can handle continuously in
| a pure passive-cooling mode.
| wolrah wrote:
| It would also be worth noting that a typical EV doesn't
| have to run at anything close to 100% load for extended
| periods of time.
|
| What sort of power an electric drivetrain can handle for
| a burst of acceleration lasting a few seconds versus what
| that same drivetrain can handle as a continuous load are
| two very different things.
|
| The same even applies with combustion powered cars too,
| if you look at the pickup truck market you'll see massive
| power numbers on every manufacturer's diesel pickups. If
| you look at their chassis-cab commercial trucks those
| same diesel engines are often derated by 30-50% compared
| to the pickups even while being equipped with larger
| cooling systems. That's because the commercial variants
| are rated to perform to spec all day every day where the
| pickup version just needs to put a grin on the owner's
| face when they floor it off the line and then
| occasionally tow a boat or something.
| chasil wrote:
| The interesting thing about gallium nitride is its use in
| blue LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which was discovered in
| 1972 and perfected in 1993, resulting in a Nobel prize.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#Blue_LED
|
| I wonder what new engineering knowledge has emerged about
| gallium nitride that allowed it to become such a recent force
| in power supply electronics.
|
| I didn't know that gallium nitride is transparent.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_nitride
| Kirby64 wrote:
| It's effectively process technology improvements that allow
| gallium nitride devices to become less defect prone.
|
| It's been known for some time that GaN has a superior
| electron mobility number (which, effectively means you can
| get a better/smaller/lower impedance/faster switching
| device depending on which tradeoff you want). Problem is,
| getting reasonably good process control has been
| challenging. It appears some folks in the industry have
| been overcoming that challenge, therefore we're seeing the
| results of that.
| Ballas wrote:
| > I don't know whether we'd argue this DC->AC is
| harder/easier than an ATX supply (AC->DC)
|
| The little box challenge was significantly harder, primarily
| due to the ripple requirements on the DC side. This is not an
| issue in the same sense in the AC->DC case, because you don't
| have that problem there (you have other ripple considerations
| that might look similar, but are not (PFC and ripple on the
| output)). Usually you would require a lot of capacitance to
| solve the ripple issue for DC->AC and the winning team had a
| very interesting way of solving it without the use of very
| large capacitors.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| > I don't know whether we'd argue this DC->AC is
| harder/easier than an ATX supply (AC->DC) (probably not?) but
| this was quite an impressive competition, almost a decade
| ago, that resulted in probably some of the most power-dense,
| highest-efficiency power conversions that humanity has ever
| gotten up to.
|
| The LBC was misshapen because they had an odd requirement: Be
| single-phase. A three-phase inverter (or rectifier) naturally
| has low DC ripple and is both more compact and more efficient
| than a single-phase inverter at all power levels. All of the
| winning solutions had extra energy storage elements which
| added inefficiency and bulk which a three-phase inverter
| would not have needed.
|
| With that in mind, the LBC was a little silly. A three-phase
| machine at the same power level would have been much smaller
| than any of the "winning" designs.
|
| A high-efficiency ATX power supply has additional
| requirements that the LBC didn't need to meet: Isolation.
| This implies the use of a transformer to protect the low-
| voltage DC side from the AC side. They typically accomplish
| this by rectifing AC, using a transformer-isolated
| unidirectionally optimized DC/DC supply to 12V, and then
| provide a handful of lower-power DC/DC converters to derive
| the other voltage levels used by ATX. A modern unisolated
| DC->AC machine is effectively symmetric in its power flow,
| and also functions as an AC->DC machine.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| One of the things I only recently learned is modern power
| supply's aren't using the transformer to knock down "raw
| mains" 60hz AC. Modern switch mode PSU's in-fact rectify
| the AC to DC and then chop it up at a much higher
| frequency.
|
| By using a higher frequency, the transformer can be much
| smaller and more efficient. If they were doing mains 60hz
| AC the transformer would be substantially larger.
|
| I forget if they also step the supply side DC voltage up
| too...
| brandmeyer wrote:
| > I forget if they also step the supply side DC voltage
| up too...
|
| They do, but they don't have to. The front-end rectifier
| boosts the voltage up to 400-450 VDC. This way, most of
| the components can be optimized for a single world-wide
| compatible machine that is capable of rectifying 230VAC.
|
| In principle, you could squeeze out a bit of efficiency
| (or cost) by producing a North American market machine
| that was optimized for 120V and a separate machine
| optimized for 208/230V. In practice, supply chain
| simplification reduces overall per-unit costs, so just
| about everything is designed as a single machine for
| world-wide markets. Only the plugs change. For ATX, only
| the cord shipping in the box changes.
| NavinF wrote:
| > this 250W unit is 170x50x25
|
| They've been selling a 400W (still fanless!) DC-DC version for
| years and it's only 160x51.5x26mm :
| https://hdplex.com/hdplex-400w-hi-fi-dc-atx-power-supply-16v...
|
| I use it to power my CPU+mobo but I also have a couple of
| server PSUs further away to power my 3090 over several pairs of
| THNN. It's far from a SFF build, but it can be totally silent.
| morganvachon wrote:
| The difference is that this unit does the AC-DC conversion
| inside itself, whereas your DC-DC power supply relies on an
| external AC-DC brick that is likely the same size as this
| entire self contained unit, if not larger.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you're dealing with solar or a vehicle you may already
| have DC available; too bad it can't take -48v which some
| racks still supply.
| dwild wrote:
| To be a fair comparison would need to include the AC-DC power
| supply that you keep outside to power that thing... it's
| double the size once you account for that.
| _delirium wrote:
| I've found high-wattage USB-C chargers to have very poor
| reliability. All the 18-W chargers I've owned have lasted
| multiple years, but the compact 90-W+ chargers have a lifespan
| measured in months.
|
| Of course, they all purport to offer a warranty, but if you try
| to claim, they will not honor it. They will claim it's because
| you bought from Amazon and they don't warrant Amazon purchases
| (despite this being their main retail outlet, and the fact that
| they advertised the warranty IN the Amazon sales materials). Or
| something similar.
| pugz wrote:
| What brands have you used? My Apple 96W USB-C charger is
| still doing fine after having it for just under two years
| now.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Apple cares about its brand. Chinese no name vendors don't
| at all, it's horrifying what plain illegal corner-cutting
| they often engage in. But that's of course what they're
| rewarded for.
| bombcar wrote:
| In fact, if you're in a bind and need a USB C charger
| that will work reliably, you may want to pay the cost to
| get a genuine Apple one. (I won't order Apple chargers
| from Amazon; I get them direct from Apple or a real
| retailer because I don't trust the co-mingling).
|
| Some of the power-tool brands are beginning to make USB-C
| devices, those chargers should be reliable also. Here's
| Dewalt: https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb094k/usb-
| charging-kit
| torginus wrote:
| I agree - I wonder why Chinese junk that basically barely
| works and not for long even then has managed to establish
| such a strong foothold on the retail market (particularly
| Amazon). I had the same experience - moreover my charger had
| multiple ports, but as soon as you plugged more than one
| thing into it, the wattage would drop drastically. my 100W
| charger would do 30W on port 1 and 10W on port 2. And that
| was the optimal case - more often than not, using more than
| one port would make devices randomly disconnect.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Be happy the wattage dropped. When I connected 2 fast
| charging devices my charger just fried.
| solarkraft wrote:
| It's cheap and there's little responsibility for selling
| crap. Amazon is the only site I'm aware of where you can
| actually somewhat judge the quality of a product through
| reviews, and those too are often dodgy as hell. Otherwise
| it's all just the same fake pictures and outright lies
| about specs. And nobody cares because _it 's cheap_.
|
| Companies selling under brands want a premium for them
| (Anker, Aukey) and "no name brands" you can actually put a
| little confidence into (Ugreen, Blitzwolf) are, for some
| reason, rare.
| ncmncm wrote:
| I just had a 4-port USB brick burst into flame. It
| certainly would have burned down the house if I had not
| happened to be in the room. It had sat untouched for an
| hour before the event.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Wow, what brand?
| torginus wrote:
| These brands are like the ship of Theseus - you'll never
| get the same thing twice.
| bombcar wrote:
| Better than the brand is the picture of the device
| (before fire, hopefully) as all the yumcha brands off of
| Alibaba will usually keep the exact same physical
| characteristics.
| tjoff wrote:
| That isn't so surprising nor uncommon even among high-end
| chargers. Many multiple-port chargers can only generate one
| voltage other than 5V.
|
| So, you charge your laptop at 100W means 20V*5A, then
| connect a phone that can only negotiate to 9V. Now your
| laptop can, at best, only get 45W. But laptop and phone
| might also have to share the same 5A, meaning something
| close to what you described. (or, your laptop might not
| support 9V ... in which case I'd guess one of the devices
| would disconnect?)
|
| You might be better off using a USB-A port if the charger
| has one, then your laptop could perhaps remain at ~100W and
| your phone might still get ~10W. (Assuming charger and
| phone doesn't also have quickcharge which might complicate
| it further). Or, perhaps charge your phone via your laptop
| (yes, negates the point of a multiple-port charger, but if
| you are in hurry - otherwise, slow charging is preferably
| anyway)
|
| A good review will test this, and a good product page will
| specify this (but if your are not looking/thinking about it
| it is easy to miss).
| solarkraft wrote:
| I have had a couple of pretty cheap high wattage USB bricks
| for years (5-6 or so at this point) and none of them have
| died on me so far. Props to Ugreen, I guess!
| Youden wrote:
| I think you might be unlucky or buying low-quality models. I
| have a 100W Minix NEO P2 that was one of the first GaN
| chargers available near me and it's still going strong 2
| years later.
|
| I also have a 60W Satechi travel charger that's been powered-
| on 24/7 for 3 years now without the slightest hint of a
| problem. It's even been buried under cushions for hours at a
| time.
|
| The only charger I've had actually die was a Hama-branded
| device. Hama is the cheapest possible Chinese junk the brand
| can find.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I have an Anker GAN power block that's working extremely
| well.
| lrem wrote:
| My two Minix P2s had no issues over 1.5 years.
| rektide wrote:
| I have a ravpower, a hyper, and just bought the new ugreen.
| The ugreen is too new to judge, but the others have ran for
| over two years, and a good amount of that time has been
| outdoors in the sun.
|
| I constantly expect failures. This seems like an absurd task
| I'm putting them up to. But they are all still alive & doing
| the job.
|
| I've had a kill-a-watt so I can see their power consumption.
| A large amount of their life is spent ~60 watts, but there's
| definitely hours on end & heavy usage days, where they go up
| to or stay at 90+.
|
| My anecdotal data looks different than yours.
| _delirium wrote:
| My Ravpower device died within 8 months, and they refused
| to honor the warranty, giving as the reason that the
| purchaser of record was Amazon LLC, not Ravpower. Even
| though they advertised a warranty on their Amazon page,
| which was the main way they sold the devices.
| gorbypark wrote:
| Does Amazon not honour the warrenty in that case? I've
| never had to deal with a similar situation but I kind of
| figured that Amazon would do something if the page
| advertised a warranty and the company refuses to honour
| it.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| I have never been able to get Amazon to honor a warranty
| when the manufacturer refused, even though the law in my
| country clearly says the retailer is responsible in the
| first place. In fact the button to return a product
| disappears from the order after a couple months, and they
| don't even have a category in their support system for
| this.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Talk to Amazon customer service and tell them you'd like
| to make a claim pursuant to consumer rights law.
| thathndude wrote:
| I smell a class action.
| retcon wrote:
| ... dreams of the EPA obtaining warrants for the fraud on
| the public for the disposal costs of so much wasted
| electronics...
| londons_explore wrote:
| In the EU you get 2 years warranty for all items from
| every retailer by law, and most generally honour them.
| gambiting wrote:
| So this is a very frequently repeated misconception about
| what the EU law actually says.
|
| Yes, there is an EU law that says retailers are
| responsible for 2 years(6 in a some cases) for any item
| they sold......but only to rectify any manufacturing
| defects. The law additionally states that any defect
| found in the first 6 months is presumed to be a
| manufacturing issue, anything after the first 6 months
| it's the responsibility of the _customer_ to prove that
| the product has failed due to a manufacturing problem. I
| 'm sure you can appreciate that this can be very hard to
| do.
|
| It's not a "warranty" in the sense that most people mean
| warranty. If your laptop fails 18 months after purchase,
| the retailer only has to fix it if _you_ can prove that
| it failed due to a manufacturing defect. It 's different
| to manufactuer's warranty, which usually covers _any_
| defect no matter the reason.
|
| And yes, there is also the law that states that products
| should last a "reasonable" amount of time - but what is
| reasonable is not a strict definition, and again,
| unfortunately sometimes has to be argued in small claims
| court. It's not so straigtforward.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| These are not EU laws, they are EU directives directing
| the member countries to implement laws. But these laws
| are not all the same, for instance in how much effort a
| customer has to make to 'prove' that a device failed due
| to a manufacturing defect.
| danieldk wrote:
| However, in practice most good retailers do not make a
| big deal out of the burden of proof as long as there is
| no visible damage that could cause the issues.
|
| I have used warranty frequently after 6 months and never
| had to prove it is a manufacturing defect. Of course, if
| you buy at some shady webstore or known-bad retailer, you
| might have more issues.
| adrianN wrote:
| If you bought the device off Amazon, I believe Amazon should
| be your point of contact for warranty claims.
| londons_explore wrote:
| This supply goes to quite some effort to have a good power factor
| and filter harmonics sent to the grid... But why?
|
| Grid operators typically have laws in place saying how many
| harmonics you're allowed to inject, and for stuff under a few
| kilowatts it's totally fine to just have a bridge rectifier
| straight to a capacitor. That's what every other electronic
| device in your house will do.
|
| If you're making a high efficiency power supply, you'd probably
| want that to be a synchronous rectifier to get 1% or so more
| efficiency, but it would still only be drawing current on the
| peaks of the sine wave.
|
| But I don't see why you'd want to go to much effort to make your
| current draw a nice sine wave rather than a series of peak-
| chopping spikes. Is it to save money on copper in the power
| supply wire perhaps?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > and for stuff under a few kilowatts it's totally fine to just
| have a bridge rectifier straight to a capacitor. That's what
| every other electronic device in your house will do.
|
| The EMC Directive mandates compliance with IEC 61000-3-2 which
| certainly requires you to do a little bit more than hook up a
| bridge rectifier to the grid.
| aasasd wrote:
| Difficult to imagine the size from a photo with a phone (maybe
| it's due to me being a user of Android, idk). I'd prefer to see
| it next to previous small power supplies--because I'm vaguely
| sure I've seen some of comparable size and wattage for NASes, and
| my shopping for them was ten years ago. However, this one is
| likely considerably slimmer in height.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| 1x2x7 inches
| kraftman wrote:
| Theres a comparison here vs other standard PSU sizes:
| https://hdplex.com/pub/media/image/Product/250WGaN/overview/...
| aasasd wrote:
| Ah, indeed I should've taken a look at the manufacturer site.
| However, I'm pretty sure that there is a format narrower than
| FlexATX from the picture -- because I was thinking of buying
| a PSU like that for a petite NAS. (Until I learned that there
| are small, silent and cool external PSUs, similar to ones for
| laptops.)
| ericbarrett wrote:
| 94% efficient! When I started building PCs it was common to see
| 60-75% if you weren't inside a very narrow window of optimum
| load. It's mind-blowing how efficient electronics have become.
|
| Also < 0.4W idle. Wow.
| zokier wrote:
| "80 Plus Gold" rating already required up to 92% efficiency, so
| 94% isn't that groundbreaking. Here is one random example from
| 5y ago that hits 94-96% efficiency
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/11252/the-seasonic-prime-tita...
| ericbarrett wrote:
| I disagree, 92 -> 94% is a 25% reduction in waste!
| magicalhippo wrote:
| At 100W load, it's a 2.3W reduction is waste. If it's on
| 24/7 that's about 20kWh over a year, or just shy of
| charging my old Nissan Leaf once.
|
| Then again, 20kWh here, 20kWh there, it adds up.
| nimish wrote:
| Could be denser. Instead of a big passive EMI filter, use an
| active one (noise cancelling, essentially).
|
| It's a little baffling why they aren't more widely used, they
| aren't that complicated.
| https://u.dianyuan.com/bbs/u/17/1086016427.pdf is an example.
| It's almost comically simple: connect a current sensor, a high-
| pass filter, and an opamp controlling a transistor. With some
| thought it could probably be cut down even more.
|
| I think TI has integrated this into their controllers already.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Is the passive one more reliable, less to go wrong?
| [deleted]
| nimish wrote:
| Well the big electrolytic caps you need for the passive
| filters are infamously unreliable which is why you see
| everyone trumpeting their "Japanese" brand capacitors which
| are supposed to be better.
|
| The caps you need for the active filter are the tiny solid
| ceramic ones that are basically bulletproof except in high
| vibration environments. The ICs needed are similar.
| hoseja wrote:
| Consumer electronics are just so hilariously bleak. Why use the
| smart option when a cheap one almost does the job too? That
| would be _overengineering_ and everyone can do that! Only the
| smartest engineers know how to deliver maximum value to
| shareholders while offloading the maximum possible
| externalities!
|
| Sorry, pet peeve of mine.
| nimish wrote:
| Yeah it's really disappointing that even in high cost
| consumer electronics there's very little incentive to
| innovate in non-sexy areas :(
| Dunedan wrote:
| The website of the manufacturer provides more information and
| more photos: https://hdplex.com/hdplex-fanless-250w-gan-aio-atx-
| psu.html
| [deleted]
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