2kV test on Poundland's new USB PSU.

If you look at the pack of resistors i think you will find that one of them is that missing capacitor. Its marked r10, r9, r8, c4.

Maybe ask Mike's Electric Stuff too. He's always tearing apart medical obsolete crud.

David E. Blankenship

I put this comment on the youtube link... then realized that was silly: Clive, I would love to see you take one of those portable oxygen concentrators apart... I always wondered how those worked, not sure if there will be anything fun in there but who knows.

Matt Enwright

My Chinese Ebay tester just has crocodile clips. And doesn't weigh anything like that!

Phil Collins

No warning necessary Clive. Everybody loves your long videos, the longer the better. Look at all the positive comments on your "rambles"... we like listening to you talk. :) I've seen lots of comments on those longer vids along the lines of "do more of these please!" Of course, people need to be aware that longer videos also take longer to shoot/edit/upload. And that I'm now craving jelly babies.

Chris Talbot

They sometimes use groups of diodes in parallel to divide the current between them.

Big Clive

would 2 diodes in the output circuit in series, essentially, dissipate the load evenly and extend their lives?

Dustin

I once dealt with a 4kV fault injector, which had a very fast rise time (0 to 4kV in 5 ns, tube-based device). I think that device was simulating a flash more realistically. The effects of such fast rise time and inductive/capacitive influence on the electronics was very difficult to deal with (we had to make the electronics resilient / go into fail-safe mode. You could hear the fault injector in every analog radio around...

Sadly, the thing is made for normal people and therefore you have to protect t=hem as much as possible. Even the slightest 2mA zap at work will cause hysteria and hospital visits. People who actually work with electricity on an ongoing basis develop a tolerance to the typical leakage currents you might find in real-life industrial environments and could probably have a greater chance of surviving a more serious shock by not panicking and making educated decisions despite the violence of the moment.

Big Clive

It seems to have various names in different sections of the electrical industry. Hipot and flash test.

Big Clive

Clive, why does the HV tester have such extreme 'safety' measures? Can it even output more than a couple of milliamperes? If not, then there's no way that it can be dangerous to a human being, at least not to ones without a pacemaker, right? Maybe you would be willing to demonstrate the absurdity of those 'safety' measures by taking a 4kV test, at 1-2mA trip current, between your hands? As it is 50Hz AC, it shouldn't even hurt as bad as the video you made with the mains-powered human torturing potentiometer, right?

I guess this is what we know in the US as a hipot tester.

Jamie Magin

Looks like a skookum choocher to me.

its not just cheap usb power supplies that explode, ive had it happen to a genuine apple usb plug, although to be fair, i dont know how shite they are, or aren't

He's so cute when he blushes!

Moz in Oz

"as is traditional in Scotland we eat wee babbies" ... you monster!

Moz in Oz

Clive you are the man. (I like complimenting Clive because it embarrasses him, apparently.) That's not a bad power supply. I thought the white stuff was going to be the hard potting type material, but it appears softer by far for insulation but re-workability, which is always a plus. Clive it took me two weeks to get around to moving some lamps in my workspace. Making the room and the hardware connections, not to mention the other fiddly setup bits for a proper monitor may be something of the task for someone such as yourself. Perhaps on a long weekend when you can just "hang out"? I'm sure others know of what I speak,

Michael Thompson