OWON SPM6103 60V 10A Programmable Power Supply and Multimeter Combo Review/Teardown

[@TYGAMatt]

Great review as always. For simple jobs for simple people (like me) having a DMM integrated is a very neat idea. Certainly keeps the bench less cluttered for quick tests

[@wtmayhew]

I have several of the Owon DC power supplies on my bench. Here in the US, they’re apparently also sold by Newark under the brand name Multicomp. The largest shortcoming of the Owon switchers is the high frequency hash on the output, but it is within spec as noted in this video. At low constant current settings the large internal capacitance in parallel with the output slows transient response … but this is not only an issue with Owon, I have seen it in an expensive supply from another manufacturer. I also have two of the Owon linear supplies and they have a little cleaner output but some noise apparently from the front panel board gets into the output. The build quality is pretty decent, especially on the PC boards which have good safety features. The shortcoming is in the case wiring where some line voltage junctions are exposed. If you don’t disassemble the instrument that will not be an issue. It is interesting to put an Owon next to a Keysight instrument and you really see a night and day difference in build quality, especially in attention to safety design. You do get more for your money with a Keysight instrument; the question is whether or not the extra quality is worth the cost.

[@TheDefpom]

Using x1 on the scope probe might limit the bandwidth to about 6 MHz rather than the 20MHz expected, might pay to check the probe data sheet to check if that is the case.

[@jstro-hobbytech]

Have you ever used anything owon made as your daily driver? Just saying. Time to bury the Hatchett and be buddies again Scott. I'm just tormenting bro. I've had an owon BT31 and the last psu which looks similar and both are poop.

[@jstro-hobbytech]

It was an owon piece of gear Paul ripped me off on and stupid me buys him one off his amazon thing afterwards haha. My ocd forced me to buy the psu but I gave it away. Last words he ever spoke to me was picking out which psu he wanted. Then never spoke to me again to this day hahaha. I can laugh at it in hindsight. Side note man. I don't remember what I did other than taking a stupid joke way too far brother. I still regret it but if you held a gun to my head I'd never remember. That bothers me even more. I'll leave you alone though. My family literally disowned me for less. I consider you sane however.

[@KerryWongBlog]

The spec mentioned ripple bandwidth is 1 MHz. I probably should do a dedicated video in the future on this topic.

[@wtmayhew]

I have the same test leads at home in both the banana/banana and banana/alligator configuration. They’re generally great test leads, except for a safety pitfall you can see at 6:00 into this video. When you stack the leads, there is a little bit of live metal conductor left exposed between the stacked connectors. Most of the time, that is not going to be an issue. I taught a student electronics lab for years, and I can attest to the fact that students will eventually manage to fall into any possible trap on the test bench. A little change to the plastic over-molding could fix the potential safety issue.

[@hauuau]

Having both multimeter and power supply combined on one display feels extremely confusing. It seems almost inevitable that at some point multimeter measurement and power supply voltage will get confused resulting in some fried projects.

[@jstro-hobbytech]

I've never been able to figure out owon as a company. Their gear does look cool but that's not something I take into account anymore. The screen on the bt31 meter I have from them is nice but the acquisition time is horrible, even with probemasters.

[@fitchaj]

Was looking for review on this unit and boy did you deliver! Thanks heaps

[@valentijn.scholten]

Thanks for the elaborate review. Hopefully it's reliable in the long term and I will be able to get used to the loud fan under load :-) Just ordered one.

[@32_bits]

Ordered this PSU last week, it all works as per the video and specs. Have noticed after 30 mins at 5v and 2.5amp output the fan is being pulsed / energised but is not given enough voltage to start rotating, this makes an irritating and loud noise. When the fan does is rotating it is less noisy. After replacing the unit, the 2nd PSU is slightly better as it does not pulse or energise the fan so much, but its still very irritating when it does. There must be firmware fix or hardware mod to stop fan being pulsed / energised and only power the fan when it is needed to rotate. Otherwise the PSU is a good addition to the workbench. Thanks Kerry for the video.

[@wd5gnr]

The ground wire goes to a lug under the power supply. It shows in the manual, but it is not terribly clear.

[@nameone7183]

I bought one of these from Banggood, presumably a reject. It had 1.5v noise spikes on 12v at 1 amp output. It is resting until I am bored & will try & get rid of the spikes.

[@vy1w1yv]

Are you familiar with the Abestop brand that has the same design, but designated ATM6301? Are the units similar in quality?

[@gamerpaddy]

can you measure response time when drawing current? their ODP series have a serious lag for CC to kick in. for example when you have turned it off, hook up a led, set volts to 20 or so with current limit set at 20mA and hit "ON" it blows up the led since CC takes too long to kick in and it outputs its maximum current for a few milliseconds.

[@romeoalfa1975]

Great Video! Do you know where I gan get a Service manual to calibrate the Voltage and Current in the Service-Menu? (Enter service-Menu: OVP > OCP > Push Knob > V > I) Owon posted a very short Video how to calibrate, but there are many more Options in the Service-Menu.

[@saneemp]

Great demonstration

[@apino114]

Power Off - is there any way to power the unit on/off without using the manual switch in the back? It would be nice to have a front panel switch to turn the whole unit on/off or for it to power down automatically when there is no activity for a period of time.

[@bradrogers3881]

Amen. Let me know what you find!

[@wisegeeksrules]

HI @Kerry Wong . How is the fan noise on this model? Is it as horrible as the SPE model? I need this for my workshop.

[@voltlog]

Why would they define the ripple spec with additional external components? That doesn't make any sense to me. I have reviewed an OWON SPM6103 60V 10A PSU on my channel and the ripple was all over the place, definitely outside the spec among other issues..

[@KerryWongBlog]

The ripple spec with the specific testing condition (including the use of filter caps) is actually fairly common. And in some test procedures a special "load board" with the specified filtering is called for. BTW, I just watched your review video. Looks like the main power supply board is identical to what's in the SPM series.

[@ToumalRakesh]

I know I'm a year late but... I have to agree. I measure ripple without adding a filter. It's nice that they specify to use a capacitor and then the result is better than their "spec", but that's not relevant to me, especially when comparing power supplies. @voltlog I saw your video too and actually went for your recommended power supply to replace the gear I lost in a recent flood.

[@maebeans]

it supports scpi unlike a lot of these "programmable" power supplies, what is it like to program for?

[@crimsomglory]

Is it possible to use at the same time power supply and multimeter?

[@jstro-hobbytech]

Owon sell test gear and ive owned some. I still cant figure out who their target market is. Even their 14 bit (or 12) scope that cost 2k was a piss poor piece of engineering. Just my opinion, not a troll. Great video kerry. I will say though, their gear does look cool.

[@stancooper5436]

Which if any of their competitors would you generally recommend out of interest?

[@jstro-hobbytech]

@stancooper5436 I use a siglent spd3303x and a collection of homemade and and meanwell supplies built for purposes. For example I have an isolated variac and a 1kva hammond isolation transformer providing clean line voltage to my music gear for playing and recording music. I have a 300 watt variable kaiweets psu that is great with almost no noise. It's a cheap psu but I'd recommend and buy it for when I donate gear to local students and programs.

[@TYGAMatt]

I've been thinking about this. What are your views on the ripple being specified with a bunch of caps hooked up? Surely this isn't a real world situation. Especially if you just want to switch on and go. You'd then need to suffer all the grief of dealing with the ripple. I suspect that someone will come up with a solution by way of fitting extra caps or changing something inside, but I'm thinking that this is something that Owon should have done right from the off. What say you Kerry?

[@KerryWongBlog]

Actually, the filtering requirement is fairly standard, it's just not always specified. This actually matches most of the real world scenarios as the power is locally filtered on all circuit boards.

[@no1be4me2]

$209 Canadian plus almost$ 6 shipping is a little steep and I don't like to put my eggs in one basket if I had a choice I keep my multimeter separate that way if something happens to either either I still got one of them at least...

[@md.mostafakhan4529]

Sorry if I missed that but are the Com ports between the meter and the supply shorted together?

[@KerryWongBlog]

No, they are isolated from each other.

[@Chris-hy6jy]

I can only assume that something got lost in translation. Lots of people asked for a "power switch on the front panel" and they added a multimeter instead! 🤦‍♂️

[@no1be4me2]

Also I'd like to add a linear power supply is much better than a switching power supply...

[@eyeflytinkerings]

Thanks so much, great review! One question: Does ist have short-circuit-protection?

[@KerryWongBlog]

Yes it does.

[@arjunlab4929]

65t180 replace to othar mosfet change mosfet number owon 60v10A power supply

[@DmitryAvsioukov]

1x probe limits bandwidth to something around 5-7 MHz. You should have used 10x probe with 20MHz limit in your scope instead.

[@juhaszpeter4796]

Hi, can you tell me if these can be connected in parallel or in series? I couldn't find any information about it anywhere.

[@jstro-hobbytech]

It needs a noctua fan at the least if someone is going to use it regularly. I pull 4amps constantly from a kaiweets psu and the fan kicks in for 20 seconds every half hour and this has been a year long test.

[@gotj]

30V x 10A is 300W => you surely meant 60V@10A right?

[@KerryWongBlog]

No, it's a 300W PS.

[@gotj]

@@KerryWongBlog Yes, but (mistakenly) you say in the video "At 30V it can't provide full current (10A) (because it's a 300W P.S.).

[@KerryWongBlog]

@@gotj Got ya, I didn't catch that. I meant at 60V it can only provide 5A.

[@IM35461]

Very crafty that it can only give out 5 amps at 60 Volts. Label on the front is misleading

[@simontay4851]

I don't like that 1ohm + 0ohm bodge at all. You can see the place where the 1ohm was meant to go. Why did they bodge it on there. At least use a through hole 1ohm resistor instead of this horrible bodge with 2 SMD resistors.

[@simontay4851]

After going back to 21:47, i can see why now. The blue relay pinout is swapped. The NC / NO pins are swapped.

[@KuntalGhosh]

Audio?

[@KuntalGhosh]

Restarting youtube fixed it. Looks like there was a glitch in the yt app

[@andymouse]

Not for me, but cheers!

[@NoiseEmission]

Stopped watching after 4 minutes when it became blatently obvious that he hasn't bothered to read the manual before making this so-called review.

[@FanGraf]

Instructions for weaklings!!!

[@pchunter168]