Any Xantrex XFR PSU owners out there? Help needed in reverse engineering a board - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: cat87
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2018, 05:16:29 pm
content: Hi everyone,So, I got a Xantrex XFR 600-2 PSU.... 600 V, 2 A... what can possibly go wrong? Except that right now it's in pieces.Most of the boards seem to be there.... except for one that has the output regulation on it (See pic below. Red outline indicated missing board aroud the XFMR board. Blue outline is for a ribbon cable I suspect has some aux. voltages for the main board)Have no idea if there's something actually wrong with it, but I am planning on putting it back together and make it functional again.And of course, the manual from Xantrex is extremely sketchy when talking about schematics or anything having to do with detailed explanations about how the thing works. So that's not going to be of much help... And neither would the Sorensen DCS 600 series... I've looked and nothing of actual help in there.So, going a different route, from what I've managed to gather from online images of the unit and Dave's Xantrex teardown a couple of years ago, the missing board isn't all that complicated. Just some diodes for the putput regulation, some caps and a few passives. And this is where I actually need your help.What would be nice is if some kind soul that actually owns a 300V or 600V unit (output board seems to have the same layout...I think) would be so nice as to take some detailed pics of the output regulator board so that I can reverse engineer the thing and make my own board.So, getting down to business...In the red higlighted area, those seem to be the diodes for the output, both the main one and for the auxiliary voltages. The yellow contour is the rest of the board with some caps and some huge caps on it. The area in blue has some 8 pin IC and some traces going to a ribbon cable that I suspect is for the auxiliary voltages.It'd be nice to identify the traces goign from which transformer connection to which diode and also how the diodes are actually connected and their part numbers. Also some detailed pics of the 8 pin IC and ajacent parts would be higly appreciated.Also, refering to the ribbon cable that I suspect is for the aux. voltages, I founf in an old Sorensen DSC manual that the aux voltages are +/- 5V, +12V, +18V and a 6.2V reference line. Would someone be willing to get out a meter and see if this is indeed the case on that ribbon cable and also which pis has what voltage ?This is where that ribbon cable ends up, on the main board on a white 8 pin connectorOh, and there might be indeed a reason why the output board is missing... it must've got out and walked away. How do I know this? It looks like someone tried to prevent other board or parts of the board from walking away because of the way some parts were soldered.Yep, got a lot of work ahead of me, but hope some out there cand help me at least get started on this

author: cat87
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2018, 08:22:51 am
content: So, no one?Did I mention free

author: cat87
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2018, 06:10:39 pm
content: Up

author: samofab
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2018, 10:33:48 pm
content: Not sure if it helps, but here's a picture of output board from my XHR 100-12.XFR and XHR are closely related as GPIB board from XFR fits right in.I had an urge to reverse engineer the whole design some time ago, but even if everything is quite accessible and full of off the shelf components it still takes more patience than I had.If somebody has a schematic to share, I can donate a beverage of choice.

author: cat87
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2018, 06:32:18 am
content: The Xhr series looks like a promising lead. I'll search the manual for it, maybe I can find some more info about the design in there. Thanks for that.The output stages for the 300v and 600v models have some similarities between them but for the 100v and lower ones, seems to be different. Also according to the manual, the lower voltage ones also have some additional PCBs to them. Maybe extra filtering given the high currents

author: cat87
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2018, 08:13:57 pm
content: QuoteSo, looks like there's no additional stuff in the XHR manual. No schematic, no nothing. Back to the initial idea of collecting photos from some kind soul with a similar unit

author: niner_007
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2021, 06:11:59 am
content: Quote from: cat87 on August 11, 2018, 08:13:57 pmI have 4 of these if you ever need pictures

author: VINAY KUMAR R
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 18, 2022, 10:46:28 am
content: Sir,I am new to this web site from INDIA i have a power supply xantrex xfr 300-4 can you please tell me the Value of the resistor Component id 1345 ans 1356. it will be of great help.