Kikusui PAB 32-2A power supply—crunched by USPS and poor packing  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: rdenney
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2025, 05:25:09 am
content: This was $25 on eBay, and it was shown working. But the seller’s packing job didn’t protect the front panel, and when some postal worker dropped it, that’s what it landed on.Here’s the eBay pic:Notice that it appears to turn onThe front panel looked like this when it arrived:Notice the switch bank is jammed and the panel is caved in.(The seller and I came to an agreement that involved me keeping the salvage.)The banana jacks appeared to be the point of impact.The plastic bits and the Bakelite base of the jacks fell to pieces as soon as I touched them, and I have new banana jacks on order to replace these. But I wanted to make sure it worked before spending that much.Here it is apart, after I straightened the front panel and sorted the switch bank.The PCB on which those switches are mounted was jammed into the transformer frame, which not only jammed the switches but severely bent over the three-pin header in this photo:That header plug crushed the PCB switch just behind it, which wasn’t obvious at first. The power supply worked after straightening out the switches, putting out appropriate voltages for the nominal position of the voltage adjustment knob. But the display was dead. Power was getting to this PCB but not the display board.It turns out that switch is one of two that controls power to the display. The whole switch was MIA, as is easier to see when I move the header and shine a little light in there. I never found most of it, though I did find some pieces of it with what was left of the red banana jack knob in the bottom of the box.Witness marks on what’s left identified the position the switch had been in. It turns out, this switch and the one next to it makes possible the use of an external battery for the voltmeter/ammeter display instead of pulling the needed power from the internal power supply for the control circuit. Why they thought that was needed is beyond me, and it’s a feature I’ll never use. So I bypassed what was left of the switch by bridging the solder pads on the solder side of the PCB:All better now. Some quick adjustments and the voltmeter reads within its half-percent spec and only changes by a millivolt or three when the power output is switched on. Doing that switches the display from reading the voltage adjustment circuit to reading the actual voltage output, so it’s an adjustment to align the readings with and without the output switched on. The voltmeter is digital but the control circuitry is all analog.The power supply works perfectly now. I’ll screw it all back together and show a final pic when I get the banana jacks in and installed.So, for the stuff I’ve bought recently to extend my bench equipment, I ended up with THREE broken items out of the seven or eight I’ve bought—this power supply and two Fluke 8050’s. I’m getting frustrated with eBay, which is nothing new. One of the Flukes just needed cleaning to get the switches working, but the other one has deeper issues.Rick “two oughtta three ain’t bad” Denney

author: TERRA Operative
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2025, 11:22:39 am
content: I had an analogue display model that I recently sold. It had broken binding posts too, but it looked pretty good with replacements, and arguably more useful with a proper earth binding post.