So I wanted to take a moment to mention something I noticed about a Friends PDU for his Cameras. So about 6 months ago he had a power supply go out that he had with a Kit. Cameras, Recorder, 2 power supplies and wires and it was a 8ch with 4 cameras so it came with a 4 power splitter to use with the power supply.. When we talked about what he should do (While I loaned him one of my Power supplies) I told him that he really should get a PDU and told him a few different Brands that I trust and what I would get. So a week or so later he comes by with my Power supply and said that he bought a 8ch PDU with 25amp power supply. So it has only been 6 months and I get a call today asking me to come look at his cameras because they are off again and he tested the power supply with a testing plug I had left for him to use if needed and it was no longer working. So I take him my power supply to get there and find that sure enough his is dead, Connect up mine cameras back up and I see that he did take part of my idea and bought a PDU however he didn't listen to me about the ones I thought would give him the best life and bought one that has a power supply in it called (NoNameToShame). So I take it apart to try and find the fault of the supply and my first thought was it has to be the Caps only thing that has ever gone bad in mine. While they were still good they were even starting to fail already with bulging.
Looking into the Transformer that is in the thing and it has CCA wires and not real copper wires that normal transformers are wound with. Outside of that the Inductor also has CCA wiring WOW how can people really sell these things... Taking the Transformer apart down to the last primary winding a few things I seen on the way to that point was the Isolation was melted and the color of seeing it had been hot.. So once I unwound that winding the reason it died is because the lacquer had melted away doing so caused a really high voltage and current that killed the Diode and Transistor. Then even though the Power supply has a Mains Fuse that fuse was still good even though it shorted out to mains and popped his breaker..
So please if you are looking to buy a Power supply or a PDU as they are most times called please try to find one that is from a known good company and or find one that might offer a Mean Well supply inside. I have a few and most of them are MeanWell and they are the ones that have never failed on me I do have a couple of others that have had bad caps but might be install locations (temps) related..
So I thought I would post a picture of what one of the Boards in one of my PDU's looks like.. Now this is one is a Mean Well unit and you can tell from this unit that even though the PCB looks to be designed for more then this unit seeing there are parts that are not in the PCB this is by design.. The Caps in the unit are very good and have been working well in this unit since 2013.. They are Nichicon Capacitor There is no cheap used parts like I have found in some other power supplies that come from questionable areas.. This is just one of a Good Few that I own.
Even though this is only a 4amp power supply it works well for the cameras I use it with.
