I'm crazy passionate about electronics, hopefully soon you will be too!
My videos tend to focus on power electronics (the best type of electronics), and my goal is to get as many people as possible excited to learn about this fascinating subject through fun analogies, demonstrations and stories! Don't be afraid to ask questions in the comments, the only thing I love more than answering questions is asking them myself ;)
I sort of knew what each type of capacitor is good at but wanted to know what this video had to show. I must say I learnt a lot more... Thanks for the wonderful video. "film capacitor do what film capacitors do best - turning into inductors, and polycharge taking alternate route to uselessness" That was super hilarious :)
Thank you so much for this I really hope you do a bunch more of these on all things electronics this stuff is hard to learn on your own but you did an amazing job at this for me and so suspect others as well. The overall idea of the video was perfect because otherwise I have to track down all the things I might find and try to piece it together looking at a pwb. so huge thanks, please keep it up!
So interesting, this is exactly why I never feel bad when purchasing another wall wart, also because the whole purpose of these newer generations of higher watt/volt wall warts is that the heat generated is away from the device, which extends the battery of the device overall. I was living with someone who was putting together computers in the 80s in LA from scratch and writing the code, and it is astonishing how far we have gotten since then. I personally enjoy learning about everything, but also understand that it can sometimes be a large waste of our time as it's more cost effective currently to simply replace with new products than it is to repair, and most technology we is out dated before it fails. I personally got to experience learning an out dated software called MX flash when I was a kid, and seeing it get erased from the internet made me realize how swift the evolution of technology is, but some physical realities of components will be able to last forever, so long as you don't care how large your bread board is. haha
Where were you a year ago when I was trying to piece this info together for myself? Seriously, these videos are amazing and will absolutely be a boon to the next generation of EEs. Kudos.
Separating out the components lets us see them for explanation, in an actual power supply to be used for literally anything an LDO is indeed a much more stable and reliable option.
Friggin amazing explanation! Thank you so much for this series of videos. As someone that has dabbled with electronics for years, I have a much better understanding now. Also, I about fell out with the "as smooth as my rizz". Awesome! :D
Then we wouldn’t get to see how it’s working with the Zener and the pass transistor, others should though as they will perform better and be smaller. Maybe I should have shown one at the end
Since the 80ties, Switching Power Supplies have gradually killed the HAM hobby. Even if every Power supply passes certification, the added noise pollution off all the hundreds of units affecting your city location floods all the bands. Those EMC components are vital for all digital communications as well. Just one failed power supply can bring down DSL communications in a 300 meter radius.
In a bit of irony I took down DSL comms of my entire village when I was much younger and built my own radio transmitter. May or may not have transmitted square waves...
Very nice presentation. Not quite sure why the simple old power supply is called "linear " in England first thing I notice in the old PS is the regulator. That uses a reference (zener diode) and a power transistor,... so NOT linear. As far as that goes, neither are power supply transformers, they saturate when they reach full supply voltage ( so the hysteresis curve becomes very flat when in use.... (not linear). Nether are the diodes,... they pass current in one direction, not the other they also operate in saturation (with a roughly .6 volt drop if silicon) .... not linear. !!!! hmmmmm.
"Smooth as my rizz" stealing this one next time I'm showing off my waveforms to hot chicks (100% chance that this will rizz them, 0% chance that the event occurs in the first place)
Thanks, very enlightening. It's been near 50 years since I had studied electrical theory in the Trade high school from which I graduated. I have forgotten quite a bit.
I'll take the old school power supply every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. That old power supply will become an even older power supply, while that new "tech" will be in a trash can in a year.
Just to confirm, where does the current in the primary coil go when the switch is off (what is stopping it from having the big inductive spikes)? Is it the in built freewheeling diode behaviour of the mosfet? Also are y caps connected to earth? If so, if there is noise on the earth due to another device, wouldnt the y caps cause noise to go into the smps system (might be a dumb question)? Also if one of the input capacitors fails and shorts what prevents damage to mains?
1) Almost all the energy is stored in the core so can be released through either winding, in this case the secondary, the small amount that is not is dissapated through one of the snubber networks which essentially acts as a very lossy freewheeling diode to make sure all the energy is gone by the next cycle. 2) Yes they are, and yes this is a thing that happens unfortunately. But generally the earth connection will be the least noisy, any noise on it is probably much worse on L & N so it still makes sense to send as much as possible the way of earth. 3) This is what makes class X and Y caps special, they are designed so they can only fail as an open circuit not a short. X are for line-to-line and Y are for line-to-earth. So Y caps are the most critical for safety. Both are types of "safety capacitor"
I love you for making a video like this❤ i literally been watching vids on how to make my own power supply cuz I don’t wanna pay that much for a good one and I’ll need to know for future projects I’m learning up to, chat gpt helped most but you made it even more simple you told us EVERY SINGLE DETAIL. And In a way ANYone will understand, ur rly good at this bro!
Incredible video! I've learned everything I know about software and hardware from RU-vid, and this is definitely among the best examples of what educational content on the platform should strive to be. Keep making cool stuff and putting it on the internet, you're changing lives man! Also, was not expecting the "as smooth as my rizz" line, but as an out of touch dad who enjoys embarrassing my daughter, I loved this!
What makes me wonder all the time... today's wisdom would say you can't have a SMPS without "low ESR" caps. But they built mass market SMPS in the early 1980s without "low ESR" capacitors being marketed - were there low ESR caps just with no golden print, or did circuit designs just take an end run around the need for low ESR?
Switching frequency will have increased in newer supplies which will need lower ESR, and at the same time capacitor technology will have advanced so that “low ESR” caps are now possible. You’ll probably find using modern caps in an old PSU will be super reliable cause it won’t work them as hard as newer ones! Especially if you were to use polymer caps 😍
