WFCO Converter

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
WFCO - the Lucas Electrical of converters. Unless MAJOR revisions are done inside the converter the design itself tortures components.

I mostly agree, except for the "major" part. The failures I've seen personally are all the same. There's a pair of power resistors electrically in series and physically side-by-side that get too darn hot, resulting in one of their solder pads either melting or fracturing, along with possible heat damage to the circuit board. A rather minor (in the big picture) physical change could fix this, as could a circuit change to cut the power flowing through the resistors. I've read of other types of wfco failures that I wouldn't be able to evaluate. Compared to the many wfco failure reports, I can't off the top of my head recall even one failure report for a switch-mode PD or Parallax converter, with the possible exception of a fan failure.

I don't want friendship. I want performance.

Try to relocate that fan to nearest the most sensitive components - the ones you have to replace because the originals are junk - the two large capacitors. It cannot be done, so a secondary relay fan is necessary. The heatsink is a weightsink, a sinker. A proper exruded heatsink would cut ONE POUND off the weight and cool better WAY better. Heat sinking is about area radiation not bulk weight.

I do not know what other power supplies use for capacitor grades but I'll say this. By going to ESR Panasonic 200vdc 680 ohm electrolytics, temperature of the capacitors dropped several degrees as compared to brand new originals in a Megawatt.

A full scan of a "working" WFCO gave me acid reflux. Stupid is as stupid does.

Reminds me to check about black hard anodizing down here - the cheater's way to gain 30% more radiant capacity. Hello black Megawatts and Meanwells.