Ohm Confinement - Week 14

Ohm is back to his engineering ways, making do on a shoestring budget.

Power-Supply Thermal Testing 

Many of us have been here. It's not a huge investment to get into power-supply development, and companies are desperate to outsource the power supply. When it comes to final qualification, you have to do a lot of extreme testing, and proper thermal chambers aren't cheap. Engineers will then improvise. 

I have certainly put parts in the freezer to see capacitor ESR and control loops change. And I have bought small ovens from Target to do some thermal stressing at the other end. Many times I have seen home-brewed thermal test setups where the power supplies live in a box with a resistive load, and a controlled fan is used to regulate the burn-in temperature. I'm sure some of you have your own stories.