Blog: Antec Truepower 550w Power Supply

Had a problem with my Astron RS20m Power supply today. I had taken it to the local museum for Museums on the air and all was fine with it. I brought it home, hooked everything back up and the power supply came on and seemed OK. I tried to power up the radio with no-luck.

At this point I tapped the power leads near the power supply and saw a small spark inside the back of the radio near the power lugs.

The power supply still showed 13.5 volts and the lighted switch was still illuminated.

I unplugged everything and opened it up. There are 2 capacitors connected in parallell across the + and - power lugs, a 2200uf 16v capacitor and a .001uf 1000 volt capacitor (Marking 102 m 1kv).

It appeared that the positive lug spun a little while I was tightening it down and the capacitors were squished up directly against the Negative lug. I suspect that the leads of the .001uf capacitor had been shorted on the negative ground lug. The .001uf capacitor had blown the entire back off of itself and one of the leads had burned through.

I tried to find this capacitor at the local Rat Shack (The only place I know of to get capacitors around here. The closest I could find was .001uf 500 volt capacitors.

The closest wiring diagram I can find is for an RS20A which is a similar supply but with no meters. This diagram shows a .001uf 100 volt capacitor in place of this 1000 volt capacitor.

I was wondering if anyone out there familiar with the RS20M knows what the appropriate value for this capacitor is. Should it be the 1000 volt that was there or the 100volt that I see on the schematic? Would the 500 volt that I found locally work or do I need to keep looking?

The Diagram I found is at http://www.repeater-builder.com/astr...1988-09-24.jpg

Thanks in advance
Eric
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