taking Xbox from the U.S. to U.K - power supply bang!

[Ed.Kloonk]

 

If you watch in HD and freeze at where he shows the input spec of the psu..

[mikeselectricstuff]

Pretty unusual these days for PSUs to not be universal input, though I suppose different standards may dictate different designs in some cases, so a US-only unit might make sense to reduce cost slightly.

[Rufus]

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/console-power/power-supply

PSUs are designed to be used only in the regions where they are sold.

    Don't try to use an Xbox 360 power supply that was built for a region that has different power requirements.

The 230v PSUs are 5mm longer - lol.

[kfitch42]

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/console-power/power-supply

Actually the chart on that page is kind of interesting. I guess due to the joys of differing laws/electrical codes, some countries get fuses, some don't. Even two countries with nominally the same power requirements (South Africa and UK) get different fuses.

And the whole split between 50Hz and 60Hz in Japan has always made me laugh and cry.

[mikeselectricstuff]

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/console-power/power-supply

PSUs are designed to be used only in the regions where they are sold.

    Don't try to use an Xbox 360 power supply that was built for a region that has different power requirements.

The 230v PSUs are 5mm longer - lol.

Amazed it's worth the cost of different mould tooling for that, unless they tooled for US then found it wasn't big enough for higher voltage caps...

[Bored@Work]

"Here is a word of advice for you".

What a classic example of how excessive gaming makes you stupid. If you are so addicted to your xbox that you can't even travel across the Atlantic without it you have a serious problem.

"Not sure what the difference is"

Oh man, dude, you slept in school, didn't you? When they talked about that electricity thing.

"I was as careful as can be".

No dude, you didn't read the label. You didn't even read it after it made bang.

[c4757p]

Oh man, dude, you slept in school, didn't you? When they talked about that electricity thing.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought that. We live in a world surrounded by electricity, please at least be bothered to figure out the absolute basics. I'm not asking people to study the intricacies of quantum mechanics, I just want them to know what a volt is. Or at least that "you can't have too many". We've had them for quite a while now. 

[Rufus]

Amazed it's worth the cost of different mould tooling for that, unless they tooled for US then found it wasn't big enough for higher voltage caps...

I read they have sold 77 million Xbox 360s.

That means you get almost $400,000 to spend on every cent you can reduce the cost of half the PSUs by.

[IanB]

I don't know anything about Xboxes, but is there a region code on games like DVDs? If so, they may not expect the consoles to travel outside their native land. Between the US and Europe there is also the different TV standard thing which still survives in analog video connectors.

[kfitch42]

Amazed it's worth the cost of different mould tooling for that, unless they tooled for US then found it wasn't big enough for higher voltage caps...

I read they have sold 77 million Xbox 360s.

That means you get almost $400,000 to spend on every cent you can reduce the cost of half the PSUs by.

That is definitely a well reasoned argument, BUT when the decision was made, they didn't know they would sell 77M units. They would have had sales predictions, which changes the math a bit.

[PA0PBZ]

No dude, you didn't read the label. You didn't even read it after it made bang.

I did read the label, but wtf?

Input 100-127V 4.7A
Output 175W Max (12V, 14.2A and 5V, 1A)

That must be the most inefficient power supply I've seen in a long time... 

[SeanB]

They do make good room heaters.........

[Ed.Kloonk]

They do make good room heaters.........

Might be a little too warm for my liking.

[Ed.Kloonk]

No dude, you didn't read the label. You didn't even read it after it made bang.

I did read the label, but wtf?

Input 100-127V 4.7A
Output 175W Max (12V, 14.2A and 5V, 1A)

That must be the most inefficient power supply I've seen in a long time... 

Microsoft. Have the coders started designing the hardware?

[kfitch42]

Input 100-127V 4.7A
Output 175W Max (12V, 14.2A and 5V, 1A)

That must be the most inefficient power supply I've seen in a long time... 

...
That means you get almost $400,000 to spend on every cent you can reduce the cost of half the PSUs by.

Hmmm, somehow I suspect these two comments are related...

I wonder if there is money to be made selling 'green' Xbox power adapters.

Then again they probably have 6 (ridiculous) patents on the proprietary connector ...

[IanB]

I did read the label, but wtf?

Input 100-127V 4.7A
Output 175W Max (12V, 14.2A and 5V, 1A)

That must be the most inefficient power supply I've seen in a long time... 

The 4.7 A would be the peak (surge?) current requirement for sizing the fuse and the supply wiring. The average current should be lower than that of course.

[IanB]

Typically it would mean rms current.

I'm not sure about that. All of my power bricks show a mains input current rating that is much higher than the power they actually consume.

For instance 4.7 A at 100 V would be 470 W (even allowing for poor power factor it's way more than 175 W).

[SeanB]

180V rated caps were probably 2c cheaper than 200v rated ones. They probably were relying on TV sets almost invariably being plugged into a common extension cord with the console, and the 5A typical power draw of the set on a thin cable would drop the voltage somewhat in high mains areas.

[Balaur]

Following a forum suggestion, I've recently bought a 203W one (for some non-Xbox related stuff) and I'm quite happy with it.

Excellent regularization (have a look at the picture and please note the y and x scales). They even have a sense wire in the cable.

The efficiency seems to be around 85%. Very low ripple.

[tom66]

I have a memory that the older 200W plug packs actually have a fan inside them. Crazy.

[codeboy2k]

seems crazy not to have just one power supply for all the regions.. that might seem cheaper, considering the tooling costs... but I am not sure..

I guess at these scales it really is cheaper to save 2 cents on 17Million units at the cost of an additional $100,000 for tooling ...

@achmed99 whats the spice sim?  I like the table of cursors at the bottom. Can you have more than 2 cursors??

[amyk]

"everything else seemed to just work"... I'm guessing he didn't have any non-SMPS electronics. Those "travel adapters" need to have much bigger warnings on them.

I doubt Microsoft designed the power supply. They probably had someone like ANTEC do it.

You mean ASTEC? Antec isn't OEM, they've used Delta and Seasonic before.

A quick Google shows they're OEM'd by Foxlink and Minebea.

[peter.mitchell]

Following a forum suggestion, I've recently bought a 203W one (for some non-Xbox related stuff) and I'm quite happy with it.

Excellent regularization (have a look at the picture and please note the y and x scales). They even have a sense wire in the cable.

The efficiency seems to be around 85%. Very low ripple.

As far as I know, they are one of the nicer looking, high power 12v power bricks; beats the heck out of using an ugly PC power supply IMHO.

[Balaur]

As far as I know, they are one of the nicer looking, high power 12v power bricks; beats the heck out of using an ugly PC power supply IMHO.

Yep, I perfectly agree:
- works nicely at the rated power
- stable output
- output sense
- very low (<20mV or something at 12A, <2mV at a few amps) ripple (100KHz)
- remote power on/off
- and I rather like the integrated, low noise fan. Better out than in.

I thank you very much for your excellent suggestion

Best regards,
Dan