12v 30a PSU for the cheap?

Hi there. Someone has experience with any "reliable" eBay or AliExpress PSU which can recommend?

Thanks!

I've started using Meanwell supplies. A bit more but have a warranty and are quite robust.

[www.trcelectronics.com]

At Aliexpress I got one of these to test prior to the Meanwells, so far so good [www.aliexpress.com] but use Fed Ex or it might take a few weeks.

My MendelMax came with one of the supplies that @vegasloki link to [www.aliexpress.com]

Its OK, but I don't think the quality is that good as it makes a rattling noise some of the time. I've not taken it apart to see what the issue is, but its not a nut etc that is loose as it doesnt rattle when I shake it, so it sounds like its an issue with the fan.


I recently had a bad experience buying an unbranded supply from eBay (I wanted to try 24V instead of 12V). I bought from an eBay premium seller that had a 99.9% rating and had sold around 13,000 units.

However when I wired the unit into the mains, and turned on, there was a loud bang.

Cost to return the PSU for a refund, (to the supplier in Hong Kong), is over 1/2 the price of the unit, and I have no guarantee that they'd receive it, so basically I've wasted $50.



I may try for an item which is branded next time e.g. a Mean Well PSU, but its hard to know if they are any better than any of the other junk out there.



As an aside, I looked at using an ATX PC PSU, and they look very promising, apart from the mass of extra wires and the need for a minimum load on the 12V (of possibly 1A).
However they seem far safer, i.e no exposed terminals and you can buy from any local PC repair company, and take it back if it doesn't work!

How loud are your 12v 30a power supplies?

I have bought my from ebay seller in Germany. It is a no name chinese made item. Its fan makes a lot of sound, and spins almost all the time. I have read that compared to pc ATX power supplies these are supposed to be a lot more silent. Well it is not. How is yours?
And I run stock prusa i3 so power consumption is not crazy.

@Edvardas

Fan on my PSU is quite loud, it runs faster when there is load. To be honest I don't mind this as it give me an indication that something is taking power from the PSU.
The whole printer makes quite a lot of noise e.g. the motors, so I've put it in another room, as I can't work etc in the same room as the printer as its too noisy

something to be careful of with a lot of these power supplies is that they don't necessarily work as advertised, a lot of the ones on aliexpress and ebay that you can buy super cheap will claim they have overload protection for example,typically this isn't the case, most of the meanwell power supplies i've had in the past the fans haven't survived more than a couple of weeks and when they fail it can be catastrophic, these things are a fire hazard and should be banned from entry into most countries

there are some 180watt laptop style power brick supplies which put out 19v and actually do shutdown on overload and/or short circuit, those are much safer especially if you are running long overnight.multiday prints

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2013 07:49PM by thejollygrimreaper.

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thejollygrimreaper
something to be careful of with a lot of these power supplies is that they don't necessarily work as advertised, a lot of the ones on aliexpress and ebay that you can buy super cheap will claim they have overload protection for example,typically this isn't the case, most of the meanwell power supplies i've had in the past the fans haven't survived more than a couple of weeks and when they fail it can be catastrophic, these things are a fire hazard and should be banned from entry into most countries

there are some 180watt laptop style power brick supplies which put out 19v and actually do shutdown on overload and/or short circuit, those are much safer especially if you are running long overnight.multiday prints

I was contemplating buying one of these sorts to try, but I think it was by MeanWell :-(

Perhaps I should go back to my first idea and solder the 12V wires together on the output of an old PC ATX PSU (I have several kicking around)

ATX PSU's look far safer as they don't have any exposed mains and often have integral mains switch.

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rogerclark

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thejollygrimreaper
something to be careful of with a lot of these power supplies is that they don't necessarily work as advertised, a lot of the ones on aliexpress and ebay that you can buy super cheap will claim they have overload protection for example,typically this isn't the case, most of the meanwell power supplies i've had in the past the fans haven't survived more than a couple of weeks and when they fail it can be catastrophic, these things are a fire hazard and should be banned from entry into most countries

there are some 180watt laptop style power brick supplies which put out 19v and actually do shutdown on overload and/or short circuit, those are much safer especially if you are running long overnight.multiday prints

I was contemplating buying one of these sorts to try, but I think it was by MeanWell :-(

Perhaps I should go back to my first idea and solder the 12V wires together on the output of an old PC ATX PSU (I have several kicking around)

ATX PSU's look far safer as they don't have any exposed mains and often have integral mains switch.

the atx supplies are safer and the built in protection is much more likely to work as advertised, [www.aliexpress.com]
those are the power supplies i use these days, you can run 1 if all you print in is pla, if you want abs then get two and have a dedicated one for the bed, if you get a short or overload them you won't do any damage they just reset after you unplug theam and plug them back in again , you can get the much chaeaper than the one in the link it's just an example

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@thejollygrimreaper

Do you run a 12V heat bed or a 24V one with these 19V PSU's

Thanks

12v one i just limit the max_pwm to 64

same with any of the cartridges, although somthing you can do if you have a heater cartridge based bed like i'm building these days is put two cartridges in serial

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thejollygrimreaper
12v one i just limit the max_pwm to 64

Thats a clever idea.

Thanks

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rogerclark

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thejollygrimreaper
12v one i just limit the max_pwm to 64

Thats a clever idea.

Thanks

the best part is that if you do this with your bed as well the 180watt powerbrick power supplies should just overload and shutdown instantly instantly under the situation where a mosfet fails instead of bursting into flames like mine did

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There is a big difference between the Meanwell and the unlabled supplies particularly in the build quality. The Meanwell has a 2 year warranty among other items like PFC on some models, various types of protection and UL/CSA ratings for the North America and CE for Europe. They've also got high end versions used in industrial and medical equipment applications. I'm on my second ATX PSU in about 14 months on the prototype machine. I've started building 24 volt Mendel Max 2.0 machines so the ATX supply doesn't fit the app. This is the higher end supply, [www.trcelectronics.com] 5 year warranty and all the features but about US$130 a unit.

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vegasloki
There is a big difference between the Meanwell and the unlabled supplies particularly in the build quality. The Meanwell has a 2 year warranty among other items like PFC on some models, various types of protection and UL/CSA ratings for the North America and CE for Europe. They've also got high end versions used in industrial and medical equipment applications. I'm on my second ATX PSU in about 14 months on the prototype machine. I've started building 24 volt Mendel Max 2.0 machines so the ATX supply doesn't fit the app. This is the higher end supply, [www.trcelectronics.com] 5 year warranty and all the features but about US$130 a unit.

there's a huge difference in meanwell and alot of them between a $130 one and a $35 , a lot of people buy these powersupplies off aliexpress because they are dirt cheap and trying to build their printers as cheap as possible but thinking they are getting all the feature listed when they don't

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Thanks for all the suggestions! Do you guys recommend to go a little bit above 30A on those cheap PSU, lets say, 33A and plug some kind of regulator?

The main thing for guys like me not in central countries like the EU and US is the shipping. Those TRC Electronic PSU are nice and cheap, but they do not ship overseas orders less than 1000 usd. The same with many reputable vendors, they just do not have the dirty cheap (many times free) logistics the Chinese have and you may end up paying more in shipping than the cost of a good PSU.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2013 08:24AM by GAZ082.

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thejollygrimreaper
there's a huge difference in meanwell and alot of them between a $130 one and a $35 , a lot of people buy these powersupplies off aliexpress because they are dirt cheap and trying to build their printers as cheap as possible but thinking they are getting all the feature listed when they don't

The least expensive Meanwell in the US from the distributor is about US$60, with warranty and overload and short protection with obvious differences in build quality compared to the off brand supply. The chassis on the lower ned Meanwells are the same as the higher end versions and the boards look good with what appears good quality components. It's no different than most anything else in that there are times you get what you pay for.

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GAZ082
The main thing for guys like me not in central countries like the EU and US is the shipping. Those TRC Electronic PSU are nice and cheap, but they do not ship overseas orders less than 1000 usd. The same with many reputable vendors, they just do not have the dirty cheap (many times free) logistics the Chinese have and you may end up paying more in shipping than the cost of a good PSU.

Might want to try Taobao for someone selling quality PSUs. Any quality PSU will have specs and a datasheet. You won't necessarily save that much on the price of the unit but you're likely to get much cheaper shipping than from the US or EU. For under 20 lbs it's about half to ship from China for me than to ship within the US.

Be very carefull buying these supplies. I have bought several that appeared to be made by MeanWell from various highly rated auction sources. When they arrived they were labeled Mean-Well or MeenWell or MeanWeii. I'm quite sure that the real company is capable of spelling thier own name correctly. I also suspect that they only have one logo and it does not have a pair of V's in it. That's why I now avoid buying them at auction.

The supplies that I have gotten from distributors have fans that are no louder than those in my PC supplies. They come on occasionaly and shut off fairly soon after they fire up. You can hear them, but they aren't anything objectionable. I watch TV while printing ....

A 450W 37.5A 12V Meanwell branded power supply sells for around $70.00. At that, I don't really think it's hard to go wrong. I've been using one of their SP-480-12 40A power supplies for a year, and have no complaints. It can heat my 12x12 silicon pad/4mm borosilicate glass bed to 110 degrees C in 6 or 7 minutes. I have noticed that some Chinese ebay sellers are carrying power supplies with the red and white "MW" logo, and you have to really look close to see that it's a "MANWELL" brand and not Meanwell.

I have two 30A ebay specials, they were $40 ea and are labeled "sunpower" they have been great, I have circuit breakers straight off the 12V line, as well as on the 240v input.
fan only comes on every 20 minutes or so on average, and is very quiet. it is running a prusa I2 with a heated bed. the other one is just for random powering of 12v things ATM.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2013 11:33PM by Rowbert.

Row, care to share the link?