A Look Inside
You can get a first solid hint for a high quality power supply, when
you look at its exterior. In this case we find a well manufactured enclosure. Apart from that there is a fan from
Y.L. Tech which falls into the high-end category. Removing the top of this unit
we quickly see that this PSU is based on a platform from CWT. One can tell this by
the green transformer. Despite the fact, that this isn’t the youngest platform
it can still be considered state-of-the art. The reason for that is, that the
primary side features loss-less LLC conversion as well as interleaved PFC
circuitry and on the secondary side we find DC-DC conversion.
First things first: the transient filtering stage, comes with two X and two Y
capacitors right behind the AC receptacle. On the main PCB there is a pair of Y
caps, another pair of X caps, three CM chokes and one MOV. The transient filtering
stage is therefore well done.
Continuing we find two parallel rectifiers. In case of the APFC unit there is
one large capacitors from Nippon
Chemi-Con, which features 680uF capacity at 400V and they are specified for
105°C. Still on the primary side, we find a thermistor, which has
been placed right next to the main transformers. Having the thermistor here
makes perfect sense, since the transformer demands cooling.
Meanwhile we’ve arrived on the secondary side. All MOSFETs taking care of the 12V rail are
on a small and vertically
mounted daughter PCBs. With this unit there is also a full set of safety mechanisms such as OVP, UVP, OPP, SCP, OCP and OTP. Furthermore the large daughter PCB hosts the connectors for the partially
modular cable management.
Last but not least a few words about soldering quality. Chieftecs OEM (CWT) is
making sure, the soldering quality matches the overall quality of this unit,
which means it’s pretty well done.