Power Supplies

[Guest wbottomley]

This topic pertains to power supplies and 24/7 operation.

For those who been using power supplies in the field, do you have them running 24/7 or are they on a timer? Reason, failure rate.

[jerrymac]

This topic pertains to power supplies and 24/7 operation.

For those who been using power supplies in the field, do you have them running 24/7 or are they on a timer? Reason, failure rate.

I have 2 of the cheap chinese regulated power supplys running 5 meter strip lights.

They have been running 24 X 7 now for 2 months. No issues.

[k6ccc]

I have one 12V Astron switching type regulated power supply powering my currently operational DC board and ServoDog and the lights when they are on. It has not been on for a couple months without issue. I have had other Astron power supplies powering 2-way radios for years without any issues.

My advise - leave them on.

[WilliamS]

Ran my 5v solid through July on the 2801 pixels and E681 running Test01 on my show computer. This one did fail. Once it got to a computer tech, he pulled it apart and was covered residue from a couple of burst capacitors. The fan was also inop at the time. He was able to replace the caps and the fan and its back up and running. He blamed the failure on the caps not the fan. This has been powered through a surge protector. His opinion was bad batch of caps, or dirty power. As this i the only thing that has failed in my household during our recent light show of storms, Im going to assume power as well. This was a RayWu 5v supply. Although I got mine fixed, with less than 6 bucks of parts, upon contacting him for my last order he sent an one out to me. It is back up and running on the pixels, as Im testing them for failure as well.

I know these things take a shock on start up, as the advice I see from Jim is to leave them on as that initial shock is usually what does more damage than bad.

[Geoff Harvey]

Last season I ran at least a dozen 350W DC power supplies of different makes and voltages (12,24,27,30,36V) for the entire season without powering them down from late October to January. The only problem I had was that 1 supply failed, but that was within one hour of initial turn on. This was replaced under warranty.

I also advise leaving them on.

[Guest wbottomley]

Simple enough. Thanks for the help everyone.

[Max-Paul]

I agree with K6CCC about leaving them on. As you know, DC power supplies have large filtering caps. These caps look like a short for a cycle or two. Thus you have a large inrush of current. And you will have a surge to what ever is connected to the power supply. Now normally nothing bad happens. But it is the theory of some of use electronic types. That each of these little inrushes and surges weaken components. Hence the reason I leave my computers run 24/7 and my LOR stuff during season. Well that and the little bit of heat given off to help keep the box it is in dry.

Although I regress in this respect. Those of you who have day time temperatures that get up to say 60 and above. Then the power supply might cook in its own heat and cause more damage to it's self.

Edited August 4, 2012 by Max-Paul

[WilliamS]

I agree with K6CCC about leaving them on. As you know, DC power supplies have large filtering caps. These caps look like a short for a cycle or two. Thus you have a large inrush of current. And you will have a surge to what ever is connected to the power supply. Now normally nothing bad happens. But it is the theory of some of use electronic types. That each of these little inrushes and surges weaken components. Hence the reason I leave my computers run 24/7 and my LOR stuff during season. Well that and the little bit of heat given off to help keep the box it is in dry.

Although I regress in this respect. Those of you who have day time temperatures that get up to say 60 and above. Then the power supply might cook in its own heat and cause more damage to it's self.

So here in Florida where I expect it to be in the high 80's to 90's for the Halloween run, and still in the 80's for christmas. What would you reccomend. Im tempted to try and keep them inside but that would be a lot of small cables going outside of the house. I do have a question for the electricians but will post in another thread.

[Geoff Harvey]

So here in Florida where I expect it to be in the high 80's to 90's for the Halloween run, and still in the 80's for christmas. What would you reccomend. Im tempted to try and keep them inside but that would be a lot of small cables going outside of the house. I do have a question for the electricians but will post in another thread.

Here in Australia, Christmas is in summer where day temperatures are typically 30-35C (86-95F) and evening temperatures when the lights are on, are 25-30C (77-86F), I have had no problems leaving the power supplies on 24/7 for the last 2 seasons.

My power supplies are located in metal boxes (about 2'x2'x1') which are sun exposed by day and have some ventilation slots. During the day when exposed to sun, the boxes can reach temperatures which are almost too hot to hold your hands on the boxes, but at this time, the power supplies have very low loads (just the LOR boards - no lights). At these times, the power supply cooling fans do cut in and run due to the ambient temperatures in the boxes. At night after sunset, the boxes quickly cool to the ambient evening temperatures, but the loading from the lights then causes the cooling fans to operate. I think that most of the common power supplies are rated to operate at 40C (104F) temperatures. Note that all my supplies from several sources have inbuilt cooling fans - most with temperature controlled on/off. I would be more concerned about using power supplies which rely solely on ambient convection cooling. I would also not use these power supplies in sealed enclosures without first checking the temperature rises that may occur during all modes of operation.

For my setup and our high summer temperatures, I am quite happy to continue running my power supplies 24/7 throughout the season.

[Max-Paul]

Very good Geoff,

And I was thinking of power supplies that might be in one of the plastice GC-1500 boxes. Even though the sealing of the door is not air tight per say. I am not sure how much circulation there is. And plastic is not known to sink heat like a metal box will. I would be like a little girl squirming in her chair needing to go to the bathroom. Thats if my power supply DC controller card would be subjected to 120F or higher. But that is just my opinion and a wee bit of training I got many years ago.

[Guest wbottomley]

Here in Australia, Christmas is in summer where day temperatures are typically 30-35C (86-95F) and evening temperatures when the lights are on, are 25-30C (77-86F), I have had no problems leaving the power supplies on 24/7 for the last 2 seasons.

My power supplies are located in metal boxes (about 2'x2'x1') which are sun exposed by day and have some ventilation slots. During the day when exposed to sun, the boxes can reach temperatures which are almost too hot to hold your hands on the boxes, but at this time, the power supplies have very low loads (just the LOR boards - no lights). At these times, the power supply cooling fans do cut in and run due to the ambient temperatures in the boxes. At night after sunset, the boxes quickly cool to the ambient evening temperatures, but the loading from the lights then causes the cooling fans to operate. I think that most of the common power supplies are rated to operate at 40C (104F) temperatures. Note that all my supplies from several sources have inbuilt cooling fans - most with temperature controlled on/off. I would be more concerned about using power supplies which rely solely on ambient convection cooling. I would also not use these power supplies in sealed enclosures without first checking the temperature rises that may occur during all modes of operation.

For my setup and our high summer temperatures, I am quite happy to continue running my power supplies 24/7 throughout the season.

Geoff... you information is a gold mine.

Thanks for sharing - as I needed to know that.

[Ken Benedict]

Back in the computer mainframe days, there was a condition known as Thermal Cycling, where electronic equipment was hot and running, then cooled down, eventually failing.

Too often.

It was worth the extra power costs to keep the equipment on and idleing throughout the evenings and weekends to prevent components from breaking down.

FYI