In my opinion this is the best power supply you can get for the money. What it lacks in user interface it compensates with stability and lower noise output than others on the market.
I like it... Looks well made, small and fanless. Your review and Voltlog review are amazing, now i dont know if i buy this one or a linear psu... We need more videos haha thank you John, Stay safe!
Thanks Ricardo 👍 If you want less electrical noise from the supply then a linear PSU is the way to go, however for a cheaper general purpose PSU these are fine. Cheers John
Hello John, nice little power supply for the price and easy to pop into the tool bag if needed. I hope all is well with you and your Mum and you are keeping a low profile. All is well here. Regards, Dave
Nice teardown and review. voltlog youtube channel has reviewed this (#255) and does voltage overshoot tests - which it passes. I have seen a number of reviews of more expensive conventional looking lab power supplies which do not. Apart from having to get used to a bit of an odd interface, this seems good value.
Thanks Mike. I think I saw voltlogs video. I'll take another look though as I don't remember seeing the scope testing part. I may do the same tests with my psu and if so might do another video. Cheers buddy John
His tests show an over current turn on spike but he explains any PSU with big smoothing caps will do that as the caps charge. I bet a high quality Agilent or similar does not, but then that's a cost level that the average amateur cannot afford or justify.
Interesting review John, but I am just curious if this little unit would potentially be good for powering 9v and 12v home audio equipment such as dacs and preamps. As it seems a very low noise unit on the spec sheet. Plus it's a very neat and tidy little product and look far better than many of the linear bench PSU my friends use. What do you think?
Hi John.. If it's within 160W It could certainly power audio equipment, not so sure about the noise figures being better than linear PSUs though, unless you're perhaps talking about the cheaper varieties available out there? If the noise levels are within the parameters you require though and less than similar alternatives you should be good to go 👍️ I've found no issues with this PSU, however I don't use it for audio stuff.
@@OrbiterElectronics thanks for your response John. I am still looking into things. I appreciate that a linear PSU would probably be the best option and way to go. But typically the branded hifi PSU's are very expensive, and the general linear bench PSU's whilst very functional and offer great value for the money, look a bit agricultural in the rack. I have seen some interesting low noise Chinese linear PSUs on the Ali store. But there are so few reviews to really know which might be viable and or meet the specs claimed. So will keep investigating. Thanks again
@@humanitech Understood John.. I guess like anything these days it's down to price. Obviously a good audio grade PSU that looks nice would be the goal, but as you say they can cost £££'s, especially as the features & power ratings increase. Here's hoping something suitable will pop-up for you real soon 👍️ Cheers John
Pretty nice. Just got the 1602 version, 60 V today. Had a look inside too, looks well done. I wonder about the Voltage rating of the chemical capacitors, not knowing how much they really get.
Thanks for the comments Tim. I actually had a probe around inside the PSU and apart from the obvious high voltage on the main 400v input cap, the electrolytics were all happily sat at around 105v, so well within their 200v rating. They're all 105°C caps too so they should be ok for a good while. Cheers John
I'm trying to use NPS-1601 to charge a small battery pack - 3 AAA cells, 550 mAh, NiMh at C/10 (55 mA). The power supply will not go into constant-current mode with only the battery connected unless the voltage is raised to 4.95 volts which is higher than recommended for NiMh chemistry. Replacing the battery with a resistor, 82 ohms triggers constant-current mode below 54 mA but above that 56 mA and higher the power supply reverts to constant voltage mode. Is there an explanation for why the NPS-1601 behaves this way? Maybe
Sorry for the delay in responding buddy. I think you're just running into the PSUs min supply specs/regulation. My PSU is very similar, although I can do CC mode at 4.2v / 55mA charging 3 Eneloop batts. If I lower the voltage down to 4.15v / 55mA the outputs on mine shuts-off too. Similarly, when set to 4.00v / 60mA it will still charge in CC mode but it's very close to shutting down approaching 230 - 240mW which again I think is just down to the PSUs minimum output specs. Cheers John
Nice little psu john :-D I'm not sure how well the output is filtered so it might be limited to none radio use. Looks like it has two seperate supplys, 3 or 5 volt for the front panal logic and the main 5 amp side. A little fan would have been nice to stop the slow cooking of the capacitors, but you can't have everything lol. i was also thinking of a button that adds 5 on every press, quicker to get close to the target value. Having said all that, ill stay with linear supplys, i like pots better than digital ha ha, yes i'm picky lol. Ooow stay safe and ignore boris, the pillock is asking for the virus to comback, stay away from people mate.
Hi Harv, yes it'd deffinatly be too noisy for radio stuff. For 50 notes though you don't get quiet stuff 😉 The control side is a bit fiddly Harv but if ya didn't have a psu it would deffinatly be better than nothing. Yea don't worry, my Mum who I live with is in the vulnerable group, so we're still being really careful. I hope the country is not heading for further issues but like you I'm not so sure to be honest. Thanks mate, take care 👍
@@OrbiterElectronics thanks, i ask my self if the main problem could be the the Vpp or the noice, but again this psu i can get for 46 dolars, and the koran for 85 dolars ? So i go for the korad ? a safe bet for the future(laptop repair or phone), and a easy interface ?
@@tdomingues89 Without measuring it's difficult to say exactly, but both specify 10mV with regards to their noise specs. By design all switch mode power supplies produce higher noise values than linear PSUs.
This is a DC power supply. Power Factor (PF) is related to AC systems. If you mean the PF of the AC side of the unit.. under no load conditions it is about 0.1%, almost no reading here as there is almost no load. If the PSU is fully loaded at 5A PF is 0.61%. These figures are taken from a cheapo power meter, NOT a dedicated power analyser.
