Arcade power supply test bench

[SirPeale]

Just a quicky on how I rigged up a test fixture for Peter Chou PS's.

Five bulb in fixtures, wired in parallel.  Puts adequate load so it doesn't shut down.

Needed to build it as I got a boatload of PS's that we were going to toss.

[Ken Layton]

Peter Chou's are the easist, simplest, and cheapest to repair. Best ones out there. I NEVER throw away a Peter Chou!

[grantspain]

Hey Peale,that rig you made looks like one of those ancient lie detectors

[SirPeale]

Peter Chou's are the easist, simplest, and cheapest to repair. Best ones out there. I NEVER throw away a Peter Chou!

They did.  I snagged like thirty of them.

Funny thing is, 90% of them have absolutely *nothing* wrong with them.

[fredster]

Until you put a load on them for a while. That's why they took them out.

Is there a Peter Cho "cap kit"?  Don't they take a special type of capacitor for high frequency?

[Ken Layton]

Clean off the circuit board and inspect it for bad solder joints and replace a few capacitors and you'll be good to go.

The ones I've found with problems under a load have been bad solder joints, especially on the ones with a terminal strip soldered directly to the board.

The special orange "low ESR" capacitors for this power supply are sold by Betson-Imperial. These capacitors actually say "Peter Chou" on them!

[AlexC]

PM me if you're going to be selling some of them, I could use 2 or 3 of them if cheap .

[Ken Layton]

What amperage is the +5 line on these? Are they all the same like all 12 amp, etc?

What color is the case painted, green or gray (that tells how old it is)?

[SirPeale]

What amperage is the +5 line on these? Are they all the same like all 12 amp, etc?

What color is the case painted, green or gray (that tells how old it is)?

There are green ones, grey ones, even black ones.

Until you put a load on them for a while. That's why they took them out.

I had them under a small load, about 1.25A.  That's 5 44 bulbs wired in parallel (see the rig above).  I need a bigger load to see what's going on, but the ones I tested so far didn't have obvious cap issues (ie bloating).  There were *very* obvious ones.  There were ones that were _not_ obvious, but certainly had a problem (like couldn't get more than 5.5v from them, and squealing like a pig)

[Ken Layton]

Squeling is definitely bad capacitors that are just about to explode!

Call Betson and order these Peter Chou capacitors:

2  # 55-4100 Capacitor, 3300 uf @ 16 volt

2  # 55-4110 Capacitor, 1000 uf @ 16 volt

1  # 55-4120 Capacitor, 470 uf @ 25 volt

I call 1-800-828-2049 (extension 720) Kevin Cardea which is Betson's west coast office and mention I sent you.

Each power supply uses the quantities listed above. I automatically change these out. Those particular ones are the ones causing the squeal and/or low output voltage.

Here's some info on the coloring of the cases:

Green: the very first ones to hit the USA. Generally only 7 amp and the first 11 amp ones were this color.

Gray: the newest. Part of the 11 amp production run, all 12 amp, and all 15 amp were gray.

Black: Not a genuine Peter Chou. This is a clone. Probably a Pan-Yes or Chu-Far brand.

Blue: Not a genuine Peter Chou. This is a clone. Probably a Pan-Yes or Chu-Far brand.

Red: I have heard of but not seen a red cased one.

The Pan-Yes and Chu-Far have their name on the circuit board.

[SirPeale]

Squeling is definitely bad capacitors that are just about to explode!

Call Betson and order these Peter Chou capacitors:

2  # 55-4100 Capacitor, 3300 uf @ 16 volt

2  # 55-4110 Capacitor, 1000 uf @ 16 volt

1  # 55-4120 Capacitor, 470 uf @ 25 volt

They don't *have* to be Peter Chou caps, do they?  I just used regular hi-temp caps in one I just fixed.

[Ken Layton]

The original (orange) ones are "low ESR" type capacitors. You can use regular electrolytic or hi-temp electrolytics ok.