Why You Should Always Test Your Test Equipment!

[@RickL_was_here]

Ahh, something else to watch. Been wrapped up in hockey playoffs and rocket stuff... I need a break. Lol Glad to see you fixing this thing, I watched the video where it failed.

[@RickL_was_here]

Dust.... The number 1 cause of electronics failure. I open up all my major gear about once every year or 2 and give them a clean out. I've got a cat and when the weather sucks, his litter box is inside so lots of extra dust.

[@marauderofdeath6401]

Great video! Will definitely remember this line of thinking for my current power supplies and any future power supplies I acquire!

[@gordthor5351]

I like your new screwdriver. Sorin has a similar one, but it's slow as a snail. That one doesn't piss around. It spins the screws out right now!

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3-7Z5WgbbWdr7s Ceration Space Pro. They will be available to buy from May, mine is a pre-production sample and I feel really proud to have been offered one for review. It's a kickstarter product also and I like the ethics of that.

[@gordthor5351]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Thanks Richard.

[@ricksampson6780]

I believe so.

[@gordthor5351]

I draw the same type of diagram as you do when replacing caps. Including a reference point for orientation and marking the bad caps with a felt pen. I even use the same arrows pointing to some cap if the diagram starts to get a little clutter. You must be focused on logic too.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Yeah I normally mark the polarity also, but on this board I noted it was clearly marked on the silk screen

[@markmatt9174]

I pulled a ATX supply and added it under my Electronics top shelf, used it for years as a bench power supply😊. Came from old Industrial PC that was part of a Dynamometer that PC was 100% clean which told me it was rarely if ever powered on. Automotive test department didn't use it so I scrapped it out. Rebuilt a number of Industrial Electrical power supplies that was for obsolete equipment. NOS supplies 1200 bucks, 2 hrs and 10 bucks in Capicitors 😂 They only wanted to give me a 4% raise last spring so now I set at a desk making 5K more in salary and drive way less pay 1 less city tax 😂

[@Dutch-linux]

Lesson learned for all of us including our Richard 😃

[@nigelfewster]

Nice upgrade on the cameras 😊

[@tonysheerness2427]

Big companies have to have all their test equipment tested and calibrated every year.

[@1pcfred]

Big companies just toss old stuff on a schedule too.

[@geezergeek1637]

What is your new camera? Thanks for showing the repair.

[@edwinwaugh]

A big well done 😁

[@0MeALot0]

You should always open up a psu to do a visual inspection once every few years or newly acquired ones and clean them.

[@jnharton]

I doubt most people are going to do that with the ones in their PC. Although if you're going to use as a bench supply or pick up used ones secondhand that would be wise. Probably also worth checking for a cooling fan and if there is one then check that it spins and doesn't sound like it's dying.

[@0MeALot0]

@@jnharton With 20 year old pcs or psus gotten from them you should always visually check the caps. It can seriously damage motherboard, cpu and gpu if they are bad. I also recycle a ton of pcs and every psu is checked for a reason. Its only a few screws. Besides caps last longer if they do not get too hot all the time so cleaning the psu is a must as well to get some airflow going again. I know most people don't, but its kinda dumb not to with old hardware.

[@tombeauchamp806]

i learned a thing. i always thought when the caps failed it was like... catastrophically bad. thank you

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

No it's often like this - the capacitors can be really bad and it still works - until one day it doesn't, or even it works on half a video and then you add a little more load and it won't work again. Yeah it is surprising until you see it, isn't it 😉 And then it's still surprising...

[@1pcfred]

The electrolyte in capacitors just dries up over time. The foil in them can corrode too. No electrolytic capacitor lasts forever. But some can last far longer than others.

[@markmatt9174]

​@Paul Frederick late 1990s into mid 2000s the manufacturer of the small caps like this moved onto China from Japan, Korea and the quality went down pretty bad. TVs to PCs d). Industrial equipment (power supplies especially failed in 3 to 5 years

[@1pcfred]

@@markmatt9174 what happened was there was a case of industrial espionage and a formula for electrolyte was stolen. But the formula was not complete. A critical ingredient was missing. That caused what's known as, "the capacitor plague". Capacitors manufactured with that flawed electrolyte packed it in early. It happened in 1999. Bad caps were produced until 2007.

[@markmatt9174]

@@1pcfred had not heard that prior, just that it was the China Caps that were at fault. They were reported made w every manufacturer name on the side so could not determine what brand was better...

[@RetroTinkerer]

Hello Richard, you are such a gentleman... 😅 Glad that your PSU is working fine now, and can power again these thirsty Athlons! Do you consider it's a good practice to check capacitor capacitance and ESR on these old PSUs that aren't replaceable by modern ones... If I would want to check voltage ripple of my PSUs while powering my machines would I need an oscilloscope or advance LCR Meters can do that measurements? Besides capacitors what do you think can degrade on these old PSUs that can provoke a catastrophic failure and take out vintage parts? Best regards.

[@viliamholub509]

Great work. What about all the other (smaller) electrolytic caps?

[@blackhorserepairs]

they rarely go bad, high ESR on those will not result in PSU not turning on (or PG low) but it doesn't hurt to check :)

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

@@blackhorserepairs Agreed - I only tend to check them if I really need too. Watch out for the two small electrolytics on the high voltage side base drive of the switching transistors though (in the typology where the PWM controller is on the low voltage side and drives the switching transistors via a small transformer). They do go bad and this type of failure often ends up with shorted switching (SMPS) transistors

[@TheDurdane]

I am curious about the electric screwdriver. Can you please put a link to the seller, Richard? Or did I overlook it and its already there?

[@JonnyMac351]

He did a video on it 3 days ago can see info there

[@TheDurdane]

@@JonnyMac351 thanks m8!

[@1pcfred]

@@JonnyMac351 Every time he uses it he really should have it in the description.

[@JonnyMac351]

@@1pcfred Have a look at the video and you will see why its a kickstarter that isn't available yet just sent to him to review.

[@JonnyMac351]

@@TheDurdane No Problem

[@alanrichardson1672]

The new auto focus overhead camera is a lot better😊

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Cheers. I'm not sure I have it totally set up correctly yet so it may get even better

[@558vulcanxh]

Great stuff😊

[@frankbaron1608]

don't forget to test the thing you test that with

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

hahah yeah where does it end 🤪

[@davet3804]

Yes , I wasted ages on an audio amp , blaming my cheap scope giving voltage readings way off the meter..turned out it was my meter !

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya, it is test equipment how could other wise test boards ?

[@jaredrand6579]

cool

[@RobinHood-vi2yi]

Hi I watched your video on the esr meter when you was using it to test inductors, would this method work with the Peak Atlas ESR70? I have learned so much from your content thanks

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I don't have one of those so really can't comment, but any 'real' ESR meter that works by injecting a 100KHz AC signal should be able to test inductors

[@akierum]

I think atlas peak will not work, it is too much automatic, will show short

[@blackhorserepairs]

Another great video! your +12V and -12V seem a bit low though

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

The ATX specifications acceptable tolerance on +12V and -12V is a lot wider than you think www.evga.com/support/faq/FAQdetails.aspx?faqid=59665

[@blackhorserepairs]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair that's why I said "a bit low", it's 10mV below the minimum (11.4 -> 11.3) probably not a big deal but I'd look into that

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

@@blackhorserepairs Oh OK, you are more observant than me. I wonder if it is the PSU or my ATX analyzer?

[@blackhorserepairs]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair actually, it seems that I'm not as observant as I thought I was :) your 12V drops to 11.1 without load, my "opinion" is that it should not drop below 11.3 with 80% load. I would not blame the analyzer first, I use the exact same one and of course along with a multimeter, so far I never have had any issues with it. Check your reference voltage, if it's low, output will also be low.

[@1pcfred]

Everything is good until it ain't. Then it's no good. I had a PSU go bad and take the PC out with it when it went bang. I've seen a PSU still produce power but it was so dirty the ripple would kill anything attached to it in short order. Older PSUs are just not to be trusted.

[@jnharton]

For what it's worth, the underlying technologies used to manufacture chips over time have had different degrees of sensitivity to over voltage conditions or excess source/sink currents, etc. So an older board and it's original design might have tolerated a wonky power supply a lot better than a newer board would. And not all PSUs are equivalent with regard to safety measures and circuit protection. But if the active components are failing, all bets are off.

[@1pcfred]

@@jnharton power supplies do not regulate the voltage to logic. You don't think any chips run on 12 Volts, do you? Regulation happens on board today. But you are better off with smooth filtered power to a board.

[@jnharton]

@@1pcfred Except they do, because what comes out of the wall is 110-120V AC and what you get typically get out of a modernish PC power supply are voltages like is +3.3V DC, +5V DC, and +12V DC. I don't recall claiming that components on the board are all A-Ok with those voltages as-is, but they didn't just magically go from AC to DC and drop by a factor of 10 or more. A bridge rectifier and a transformer might suffice for unfiltered 12 V power without any regulation, but there is definitely regulation happening to get 3.3V and 5V ouput.

[@1pcfred]

@@jnharton They're doing away with everything except 12V in the next PC PSU spec. All the power hungry stuff is on the 12V rails now. Your graphics card and CPU just use 12V They regulate that down to what they need themselves. But they need lots of power so they convert it from 12V. That keeps the current that needs to be transmitted reasonable. Power equals Volts times Amps. So if you halve the voltage you double the current for the same power. CPUs run at around 1 Volt today. But they use over 100 Watts. A wire that can carry 100 amps is over a quarter of an inch in diameter. That's a tad extreme for PC hardware. Engineers are taking fire from all around them and just have to solve problems for every vector of attack. That's why we have the line current to PSU to VRM system we have today. They're using a series of strategies to stay in the fight. The barbarians that assault them keep demanding more performance all the time.

[@jnharton]

@@1pcfred If you say so... Seems to me like moving all the voltage drop to the board would increase the risk of toasting your board with a bad PSU. No idea where your going with that wiring bit. I think they probably had that bit figured out a long time ago. In any case, I'm sure modern CPUs have more than one supply and ground pin. VRMs are useful because they allow the CPU to run at a different voltage than the surrounding circuitry. And obviously there are designs that can be adjusted digitally to output different voltages, otherwise you couldn't set that in the BIOS.

[@alanrichardson1672]

That battery powered screwdriver you are using is a bit noisy compared to the ones I have used in the past. Is it working ok?

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I think it is noisier because it is more powerful than 'standard' ones

[@alanrichardson1672]

​@@LearnElectronicsRepair makes sense

[@unintendedperson]

My dmm need replacement. Loll

[@absurdengineering]

Who watches the watchers :)

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Well just because you are not paranoid it doesn't mean people are not looking at you 😉

[@1pcfred]

Why that'd be the watchmen watchers, of course.