Quality of BFL power adapters

[xDGDZEx]

I just thought that I would put this up for people to see. I have 8 singles (Rev 2 and 3) and chose to include the power adapters because I didn't have a PSU to use them with.

Long story short, out of 8, 1 made a horrendous burning smell when powered on, and 1 died within a week. So that is a 25% failure rate from my experience.

I get that they are cheap, I wasn't expecting much in the way of efficiency, but goodness...for $600, I was hoping that the power adapters would last.

To their credit, BFL has been making an effort to improve CS and I had one replacement in my hands 3 days after I received my singles and discovered the defective adapter. However, when the second one failed, I sent them another email, offering to ship back the defective ones for proof that I wasn't just taking them for a ride. Still haven't heard back after ~2 weeks. 

Just an FYI

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[Cablez]

For best power efficiency of the units it is probably best to run the singles from an 80+gold PSU.
It should save you anywhere from 5-7W per unit.

There was a thread where Inaba measured the draw of a single from the brick and from an ATX PSU.  Can't seem to find it right now. Its around though. 

[Epoch]

xDGDZEx, IIRC Inspector2211 also experienced a power adapter failure. Instead of a replacement, he opted to use a 12V bench supply he had kicking around. I am running several Singles myself with the stock adapters.

The BFL PSUs are rated to 120W, and a Singles draws 87W. So that's 73% of full load. Not a bad place to be ... but those PSUs do run (very) hot. It may be worthwhile to force some air over them with a small fan to help keep them cool.

I am certain you would do better to use a standard ATX 80+ Gold (Bronze or Silver are fine as well). Not only will an ATX supply will likely be more reliable and cooler-running, it will save you 5-7W per Single as mentioned. Plus you can run multiple Singles from one ATX supply.

The Singles themselves use about 72W; a 90% efficiency supply will use 80W from the wall to supply that amount. The stock BFL PSU will take 87W from the wall. And don't throw out the stock BFL PSUs, though ... if you ever run into a problem with your ATX supply, you'll still have the BFL adapter to fall back upon.

If you need some ATX-to-BFL cable adapters (PCIe to barrel plug connector), I can recommend you to Cablez ... he can make high-quality ones to your custom specifications.

[BFL]

We haven't had any problems previously, but this last batch of power adapter has had some DOA units.   We're now burn testing them right along with the Single before shipping.

[xDGDZEx]

Thanks for the tips on the PSU's guys, but I already was pretty sure that was the route that I wanted to go eventually. But considering that only 7 out of 8 of my singles have power now, it's just forcing my hand a bit sooner than I was expecting. I will probably end up getting a 80+ gold PSU and some stuff from Cablez, if just to reduce the rat's nest of wires that is my room right now. 

[Inspector 2211]

Thanks for the tips on the PSU's guys, but I already was pretty sure that was the route that I wanted to go eventually. But considering that only 7 out of 8 of my singles have power now, it's just forcing my hand a bit sooner than I was expecting. I will probably end up getting a 80+ gold PSU and some stuff from Cablez, if just to reduce the rat's nest of wires that is my room right now. 

I cut off the +12V cables from BFL's made-in-China supplies, put crimp terminals on them and wired six singles to a 600W single 12V output Vicor Power "Flatpack" supply, which I already had. The two other singles are still powered by the original supply and will probably stay that way for the near future. When the remaining four Singles arrive (any day now), I'll wire one of them into the above-mentioned 600W supply and the three others into a 300W Vicor power Flatpack. These Vicor Power Flatpack supplies are awesome, if expensive. But I already had them from a former [unsuccessful] business venture.