BVH said:WOW! Just found this thread. You're a man after my own heart - or whatever that saying is. In 2015 and 2016, I scoured Ebay in search of both DCS and DLM Sorensens - Not working/for parts. In the end, I acquired 50 supplies
......
covering DCS 1,000 and 3,000 Watt units as well as the DLM 3,000 and 4,000 Watt (3-Phase) units.
... Three phase is cheap in every brand... but hard to make use of without a converter... solid state, cheap, 3-phase converter???
I bought a rotary Phase converter to be able to work on these units.
... this is the converter that works by https://www.google.com/search?q=rot...chrome.0.0l6.366j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8turning a motor yes?
But nothing over 120 Volts output.
... DC or 3phase, I am unclear
I kept track of everything I did with all costs and I managed to fix 33 of the 50 units and re-sell them on Ebay. I ended up making about $3,500 overall after parts costs.
... LOL, minus 40,000 hours of your time
But it wasn't the money that interested me. I could hardly wait for UPS to arrive and deliver another dead supply. I'd pop the top and start looking for any visible damage. It was like Christmas. I really enjoyed the few years of doing this and then the re-sale costs started to fall a lot to the point where I would lose money after sellers fees and shipping costs.
... Yes, I know this feeling. It is similar to the wood craftsman who spends 400 hours building a chair leg for a neighbor.
Its not about the capitalist perspective... its about the moments of not feeling anxious (for me).
I had only two very old units like yours with the two long input section caps. Most that I got had the bank of 6 smaller caps and newer output chip-style FETs.
... Yes, the E-Series good for more power ...
I bought a stock of parts so I could fix them as soon as I figured out what was wrong. I have to say that at least 1/3 of them arrived with no D-Sub connector with bridge pins. As soon as a proper configured plug was installed, most fired right up and worked under full load. (I bought and still have a TDI brand 4000 Watt electronic load that I used for 20 minutes on each unit at 85% load before I sold them)
... yea... the Dsub confuses new users. I try to keep fresh in my mind how confusing the supply was upon first observation. I considered spinning a little Purple PCB board for thoseI thought that could be cool.
In the end I made an Arduino Interface that reads and writes V/I. I wrote the interface for the Isolated Dsub (different pinout) so I still need to spin a variant for the non-Isolated.
... you... eh... want to part with your parts collection and E-Load? I cant buy right this second - but if contract work picks up I would not bat an eye and offloading this gear from you. I am quite passionate about fiddling these supplies into a condition where they are more noob friendly. I want to see one of these (in 120V Single) on every E-bikers bench.
Fans, input section and output section caps, a few bridge rectifiers, a relay or two, sometimes a bad GPIB board and a few other minor component swaps where the component being burned was obvious were the problems I usually found. Only once did I find a blown fuse. The new fuse fixed it and it passed the 20 minute near full load test. I never had one returned although I did end up buying one back (didn't know it at the time until I saw some of my markings inside) It came to me with a squealing part that I was never able to find, so I guess I technically had one "come-back".
... yes... the squealing is the next area of interest. I have not replaced any output caps yet. I cant tell if the noise is coming from the caps or the Transformer... easy enough to tell... with a set of "known good" swap-in's.... but to get to that lelve, I have to "tool up".
At one point, I could not find a DCS 1K unit fan for under $65.00. I ended up drilling a tiny hole in the pressed-in cap visible on the top/center of the fan. Then I used an Awl to gently pry off the cap. This allowed access to the retention circlip that once removed, gave me access to replace the tiny ball bearings. Worked like a charm.
...SWEET... I have been looking at a fan on my desk thinking about that. It is riveted together. On this fan the blade is visibly broken - I am presuming it is pressed on. I will drill it out and post pictures.
I kept only one of the supplies for myself - The Sorensen DLM 32V/95A unit. I'm pretty sure it was brand new as seller described it. I got it for $795.00. A school bought a few of them for a grant project and didn't need them all.
... Wow, good price. Funny... in my mind the DLM were always the 600W half size units. I was actually searching for reference to correct you (thinking you were mixing up the series...) but... looks like you taught me something
I still have new fans, tons of caps, some rectifiers, relays, resistors, display digits and other misc parts. Maybe I'll do it again someday.
...Nope - they will decay in your garage until one day far in the future you will sadly toss them into the bin
Just looked on Ebay for fun. The first 4 not working DCS 33/33 supplies for $100, $100, $125 and $125 are all from the same seller (one that I bought from) and all have no D-Sub connector. Good chance that's all that's wrong with them.
Now I am over it and I really want to get a community started around this form factor (the 1U, 120V). It looks like there are a ton of them out there and they can be maintained over time.
This isn't efficient, but:methods said:
BVH said:
Just dont yell at me please. I look out for the community all the time - so - if you are looking to parse semantics, look elsewhere. I use the word MAN because ... eh... old guys thousands of years ago did and... uh... they look like Jesus... so... what?)
