08-25-2019, 12:18 AM
Yesterday's smoke involved the newly arrived 1800 watt voltage booster.
I wired it up to my 18Ah AGM battery, put my cheapo centech multimeter leads on the output on the 200 scale and see 20.20 volts on the output.
I then disconnected it from power and then put my trusty several year old wattmeter on the output, hooked up the battery to the input. Saw 20.21 volts, and busted out the jeweler's screwdriver to move the voltage pot and see output voltage respond. The only load in the output was the wattmeter itself, i had hooked no load to the wattmeter yet.
These are something like 20 turn potentiometers, meaning 20 full turns to go through the full resistance range. no way a quarter turn would increase voltage more than a volt or 2.
I spun the pot clockwise, something made a click sizzle, and the wattmeter went dark.
When the cursing subsided I put the cheapo cen tech multimeter back on the output leads on the 20 volt scale. It read 1, meaning voltage was over 20. I moved dial to 200 volts scale and it read 90 volts!!!!!.
No wonder the 60 volt maximum wattmeter fried.
On close inspection of the main transitor legs, I saw the worst soldering I've ever seen on any product ever.
There is fractured solder joints, what appears to be missing transistor legs as well as solder 'joints' completely lacking solder!
Now, i should really have inspected this before getting overexcited and hooking it up to a battery, and then hooking my wattmeter to it.
NOt quite sure how they solder these components, a friend says they insert all the components and then send it on a conveyor over a molten solder pool to join all the components, rather than an individual sitting there with a soldering iron atttaching things one at a time. Supposedly they do many at a time. If so, they obviously got the solder level wrong, and the person inserting the transistor legs into the circuit board did not snort enough meth that morning, or perhaps too much.
It is likely the whole run of these devices is as poorly soldered as this one.
Live and learn. I'll be closely inspecting each electronic gizmo from here on out before connecting anything of importance to it.
I got to log into ebay and demand a refund.
I highly doubt seller will pay to return and inspect it. it is likely I might try to solder all these transistors and test it for function. Should likely get a few more free or cheapo harbor freight multimeters if/when that time comes.
What is 'amusing' is that they went through the effort to grinding off the identifying markings on this particular processor chip. as if it is a huge secret they can;t allow others to see.
Now if they did this before or after soldering is unknown, but it after, then the time it would take to do this the tech would easily see the ridiculous solder joints on the main transistors.
I wired it up to my 18Ah AGM battery, put my cheapo centech multimeter leads on the output on the 200 scale and see 20.20 volts on the output.
I then disconnected it from power and then put my trusty several year old wattmeter on the output, hooked up the battery to the input. Saw 20.21 volts, and busted out the jeweler's screwdriver to move the voltage pot and see output voltage respond. The only load in the output was the wattmeter itself, i had hooked no load to the wattmeter yet.
These are something like 20 turn potentiometers, meaning 20 full turns to go through the full resistance range. no way a quarter turn would increase voltage more than a volt or 2.
I spun the pot clockwise, something made a click sizzle, and the wattmeter went dark.
When the cursing subsided I put the cheapo cen tech multimeter back on the output leads on the 20 volt scale. It read 1, meaning voltage was over 20. I moved dial to 200 volts scale and it read 90 volts!!!!!.
No wonder the 60 volt maximum wattmeter fried.
On close inspection of the main transitor legs, I saw the worst soldering I've ever seen on any product ever.
There is fractured solder joints, what appears to be missing transistor legs as well as solder 'joints' completely lacking solder!
Now, i should really have inspected this before getting overexcited and hooking it up to a battery, and then hooking my wattmeter to it.
NOt quite sure how they solder these components, a friend says they insert all the components and then send it on a conveyor over a molten solder pool to join all the components, rather than an individual sitting there with a soldering iron atttaching things one at a time. Supposedly they do many at a time. If so, they obviously got the solder level wrong, and the person inserting the transistor legs into the circuit board did not snort enough meth that morning, or perhaps too much.
It is likely the whole run of these devices is as poorly soldered as this one.
Live and learn. I'll be closely inspecting each electronic gizmo from here on out before connecting anything of importance to it.
I got to log into ebay and demand a refund.
I highly doubt seller will pay to return and inspect it. it is likely I might try to solder all these transistors and test it for function. Should likely get a few more free or cheapo harbor freight multimeters if/when that time comes.
What is 'amusing' is that they went through the effort to grinding off the identifying markings on this particular processor chip. as if it is a huge secret they can;t allow others to see.
Now if they did this before or after soldering is unknown, but it after, then the time it would take to do this the tech would easily see the ridiculous solder joints on the main transistors.
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