syndr0me

iTrader: (32)

When I got back into R/C seriously about a year ago, I bought one of those $50 Pyramid power supplies that a lot of people on here recommend. I didn't realize it until very recently, but that led to a year of frustration with all the electronics that were powered off it.

Other people use them, so maybe mine was just bad... I'm not handy enough with a voltmeter to try and figure out what it's doing wrong. But, something about it made every device I ever connected to it malfunction. Maybe it was voltage?

The tricky thing is, the malfunctioning was sporadic, and minor, so I didn't suspect the power supply. I had two APS chargers that would sometimes reset, and act like buttons were being pressed when they weren't. I eventually replaced those with a MM Cell Master and it worked better, but sometimes it would show odd behavior too. My CTX-D would act like I was pressing buttons multiple times, even though I only pressed them once. And there were other quirks along the way too, but I didn't put the pieces together. I finally isolated the PS as the possible issue when I borrowed someone's charger at the track since mine wouldn't work right, and it had the exact same trouble.

So, I replaced the PS with one of better quality, and suddenly EVERYTHING works right. Now I've got a bunch of chargers I don't need, and didn't want to sell since I thought they were broken. :-D I feel quite stupid sending things off for repair that weren't broken, and letting it go on this long without figuring this out. It just wasn't apparent what the problem was until recently.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, except that if you're having multiple devices fail, it might be a crappy power supply that's doing it. Hopefully someone can benefit from my misfortune and idiocy.

Anthony.L

iTrader: (41)

You get what you pay for is the moral of the story. I've always invested in Rivergate power supplies and nothing else. Notice I said investment because they last forever. In 12 years I haven't been let down since.

bad-monkey

amen to that!!!!!

bomberman

what could be the effects of using two chargers in one 12.5amp supply? right now, i dont have any bad effects..

koabich

You could have 100 chargers hooked up to the 12.5 amp power supply as long as their combined charging current is 12.5 amps or less you are fine.

Nicadrauspro4

Not to be mean but what you stated is NOT TRUE!!!

Show us a 12.5A power supply that can provide sufficient voltage and amperes to 100 chargers. Not even a 24A capacity power supply can handle half of what you said.

The more chargers or devices you hook up on your power supply, the more drops of voltage will occur. When the voltage drops to 11.5v or less, the power supply will have difficulties in supplying the right amount of amperes and this will cause false peaks when charging.

JanisK

I would like to say that Koabich was right.
Unless all of those 100 chargers together are not pulling more thant 12.5 amps out of that particular power supply, everything will be working, no doubts about that.

Jason B

iTrader: (13)

Actually, not to be mean what what you stated is NOT TRUE. A power supply that is rated to supply 15 amps at 12V can, in fact, supply 15 amps at 12V (assuming the manufacturer wasn't lying and is competant). If that means supply 0.5A across 30 chargers, then it will do just that.

koabich

You just need to read my post a little closer. If a power supply is capable of putting out 12.5 amps of power, you can in fact hook up as many chargers or accessories to that power supply as you want. As long as the total amount of power pulled from those 100 chargers and accessories is equal to or less than the 12.5 amp capacity of the power supply then everything will be fine!!

koabich

Thanks for the support guys!!

bomberman

im hooking up two chargers both charging at 6amp. and got no problems

but one time i used discharge function on the 1st charger and the 2nd one is charging at 6amp it still went good. can it lead to something??

Anthony.L

iTrader: (41)

The worst that will happen is the power supply will trip and you have to restart your chargers. Most chargers now days even have auto restart in that case.

Don't worry about it, if it happens more often then that simply means you need to buy a larger power supply. To me a 24amp is a min, and I've always bought a 30amp rivergate. It's only downside if the size in small pit spaces.

bomberman

okay. So as long as i can make use of the things and voltage input on the things are good then there will be no problems?