[NSRCA-discussion] Power Supplies

Wed Jul 3 07:47:34 AKDT 2013

I built one almost two years ago using two HP 600 supplies. Adding a couple of resistors I was able to get the output to 26.1v pretty much regardless of load. I have pushed it to its rated limit and lots of on/off cycles with no problems. These are used components working out of there design parameters so of course there will be failures but so far mine has proven to be very robust and under $50.

Lots of threads about how on RC groups or buy it from Feathermerchant and just go fly.

Anthony

Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2013 07:44:18 -0700
From: getterflash at yahoo.com
To: nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Power Supplies

Good question.  I can tell you it has not caught my attention, the "24.x" volts displayed by the charger seems to be constant.  I will pay attention next time I charge and provide some feedback.  When I charge 10 cells at 4 amps the charger is drawing 7 amps from the supply, it drops to less than an amp toward the end of the charge cycle.

Bob Kane
getterflash at yahoo.com

From: Jon Lowe <jonlowe at aol.com>
To: getterflash at yahoo.com; nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org 
Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Power Supplies

Love the description on Amazon.  In one place is says "Power source:  Air Powered".  That I'd like to see.   In anotherplace, it says it is "cooling by free air convection", yet it shows a fan!

Bob,
How stable is the voltage output at full load?  One thing I've liked about the server PS's I've been using is that they are extremely stable between minimum and full load.  I use the things day in and day out with many on-off cycles with nary a problem.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Kane <getterflash at yahoo.com>
To: General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
Sent: Wed, Jul 3, 2013 9:02 am
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Power Supplies

No handles and it was never intended for public display.  But it does have a full enclosure and a green LED.

The case does have a couple of threaded holes so it could be easily mounted in a charging box.

Bob Kane
getterflash at yahoo.com

From: Ronald Van Putte <vanputter at gmail.com>
To: General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 9:55 AM
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Power Supplies

Yeah, but does it have cool lights and a neat handle? 

On the serious side, that's a great find.  Let's see 15 amps at 24 volts is 360 watts.  Charging two 5S packs at 4 amps at a nominal 20 volts per pack is only 160 watts, so the power supply should work for two 10S packs.  

BTW, I am using two Turnigy 10XC chargers in my charge box.

Ron Van Putte

On Jul 3, 2013, at 6:48 AM, Bob Kane wrote:

I have picked up two of these from Amazon:

"Dc 24v 15a Switching Power Supply Transformer Regulated", they are around $25.  Working well so far. No modifications needed, but you do need to wire a power cord and charger leads.

I use the Turnigy 10XC charger and usually charge at 4 amps.  The charger draws 7 amps from the supply when charging a 10S pack so in theory I could run two chargers off this supply. 

I have also powered this setup from a cheapie 800 watt two-stroke generator a couple of times, no issues yet.

Bob Kane
getterflash at yahoo.com

From: Ronald Van Putte <vanputter at gmail.com>
To: General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> 
Sent: Monday, July 1, 2013 11:50 PM
Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] Power Supplies

A lot of electric-power pilots are building or buying charge boxes.  Many of the charge boxes contain the HP DL380 G4 DPS-600PB 12V/575W power supply.   

Since they are so inexpensive to acquire and so simple to convert for our use, I'd like to provide some information about them.

These are so called "hot swap" power supplies.  They are really tough and were designed to be used in a computer server 24/7.  Their output is 47 amperes at about 12.5 volts.  You can use two in series to provide 47 amperes at about 25 volts.

You can buy them at places like eBay for about $15 delivered if you shop around, particularly if you look for lots of two or three.  These power supplies cost upwards of $300 when they were in active use, but the servers they were designed to work with have been retired, leaving a lot of these server power supplies as surplus.  Consequently, you can get them pretty cheap. 

I usually show pilots with any measure of soldering skills how to convert them for our use.  The conversion takes about 30 minutes.  The rest, who can't solder or can't follow simple directions, I do the conversion for them.

There is a great description how to do the conversion of the HP model DPS-600PB power supply here:  https://sites.google.com/site/tjinguytech/my-projects/HP47A

Any questions?  E-Mail me offline.

See you at the Nats.

Ron Van Putte
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