The 2012 El-cheapo PSU Roundup

[c_hegge]

Definitely get some thicker heatsinks in that if you can. Those originals are thin enough for me to bend and break with my bare hands.

The PI coils on the secondary aren't polarised and can be installed either way.

[Pentium]

Yeah they are pretty bad. And awesome I will update it and put the pics on badcaps and probably here too

[Pentium]

Probably a stupid question....I was just going to move over the heatsinks (and maybe the rectifiers) from another half bridge PSU. Would it be acceptable for only one of the heatsink leads to be soldered to the PCB?

[c_hegge]

Yes, that should be fine. All that really matters is that they don't bend and flop around too much, otherwise they could eventually break the legs on the parts. If you can find another way to keep the heat sink still, you don't need to solder it to the PCB at all. If it's the secondary heatsink, just install a 2nd 12V rectifier, as having it soldered down on both sides will do the job. The primary heatsink can be a little bit harder, but you could probably use a couple of zip ties (1 around the primary caps, and 1 around the transformer) if you don't mind it looking a little ghetto.

[Pentium]

Cool, thanks for the reply and info! Since I have a bunch lying around I might replace the 13007's with Fairchild 13009's

I also thought you might be interested to know that both those Sun input caps measured out to 319uF

[c_hegge]

Ah, the old fake capacitor trick.

[Pentium]

Yeah...I wish I knew who the OEM was! I got a better heatsink on there with ST 13009's. A little crooked but it shouldn't affect it. I also added those 2 lighter blue Y caps on the input, I've added a PI coil on the 5V still going to add one to the other rails.

[c_hegge]

Oh, "Deer" me. I think I know where that heat sink came from

Being installed crooked like that shouldn't be a big problem, as long as you can still install the primary caps. It could be just the pic, but it looks a bit like the legs on that switcher are almost touching the heat sink. Make sure that doesn't happen, otherwise, it will blow the fuse when powered on.

[Pentium]

Ha! You're good, it came from an Allied The legs aren't touching the heatsink but they are about 2mm away from it. Still shouldn't cause any issues?

[c_hegge]

Deer/Solytech are about the only manufacturer to use that shape primary heatsink. As long as the legs don't short on the heatsink, the switcher will be fine