Studiospares 44900/Soundking EE 301 Mic 48v Phantom Power Supply

[TheBay]

Picked this up from a second hand shop today, never seen one with a mains input before and it felt heavy so thought great it's got a nice linear transformer rather than a SMPS that some come with.
Got it home and first thing I did was pop the cover off.

Yes that label does say 170v on the transformer secondary winding, I got a reading of 220v unloaded with a 240v input.
Who came up with the design for this? granted that PSU is rated at a low current but that's just not the point, the last thing you want is a Mic with 170v+ going up it if something goes wrong,
look how they are are dropping this voltage, bridge rectifier to DC and some caps and resistors!

Look a the X capacitor just held on with hot snot (It's actually come off!) and the connections are insulated with insulation tape!

I dread to think what the other AC input is for, I'm wondering if that's for 100-120v countries and they don't bother with a transformer 

[Cyberdragon]

Risk of visual shock, DO NOT OPEN!

Don't worry it's "PPASS"ed it'll be fine right? (Chinesium alert)

If the sockets are paralleled somehow then voltage should come out the other. That's probably the only reason for using an HV transformer.

[dmills]

It is difficult to see, but might that cap be in **series** with the transformer primary?

This would kind of make sense if they were repurposing a transformer intended for a valve preamp or the like where a 220V secondary feels quite reasonable, still a nasty hack, but I can kind of see it.

Regards, Dan.