24 Aug
2014
24 Aug
'14
11:36 p.m.
Absolutely the best thing are incandescent lamps because of their
temperature coefficient they consume their rated 'power' at pretty much any
voltage. I've used an old PC power supply on my bench to bring up things
like disk drives and what not and for it only the 12V supply needed a load
to go 'live' so I put an RV overhead light fixture over my bench and when I
turn on the power supply it provides extra light where I am working (and
lets me know the PSU is on)
--Chuck
On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 1:45 PM, Robert Jarratt <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com
wrote:
I have some machines which I have had a while and
which I have yet to power
on. I am a little wary of just switching them on and hoping they will work,
being concerned that if they are not right they may damage something in the
machine.
Since a switched mode PSU needs a load to work properly, what do people use
as a dummy test load for power supplies?
I was thinking of building a small board with a bunch of resistors on it
and
suitable connectors (particularly the molex one common in most PCs). Maybe
switchable in some way to vary the amount of power consumed. Good idea?
Would it make sense to test the outputs of the PSU (for voltage and ripple)
just at the minimum power, or would it make sense to test the maximum rated
power consumption, or perhaps both?
I believe there are test instruments for this kind of thing, but that they
are very, very expensive.
Regards
Rob