Being new to electronics and having spent some time wondering that variable power supply I would want to buy, I was charmed for some time by the front panel of the KA3005D and decided to go for that one, knowing such cheaper power supplies might be iffy one way or another. A similar design was reviewed in 2012 I think by EVVblog, which didn't fare well in testing at the time.As I understand it, this unit offer 5A of power at 110V and 3A of power at 220V. For a total of eh 660W max output if I can just multiply the amps with the volts. (I don't expect to ever use this much power myself or I would buy something else I am sure.)
I have not yet used this thing, I have not even turned it on. I thought it could be interesting for those wondering what this thing would look like, years after they started selling this model. My impression from reading this forum and watching youtube videos, is that there seem to have been some changes, and not knowing what I would end up with, I had hoped that this unit of mine would at least be an improved version, though I can't account for any changes per se.
Because I am new to all of this, I am not comfortable recommending this unit to anyone, but I thought sharing some photos could be interesting for those wondering what it might look like in 2017.
The unit of mine was packed in some more or less fancy Korad packaging, sold by SRA. The box seemed to have too little glue though, as two sides came loose on packing out this thing.
The unit was placed in a large zip loc bag together with a small humidity collecting bag (iirc). A manual in English, some probes and a 1m US power cable was also included, and separately packed in plastic bags.
Good things so far:
• Nothing rattling inside when I carefully flipped the unit around.
• The buttons on the front feels ok when I press each of them.
• The unit seem to have grounding wires inside, and they seem to be firmly attached with a screw and a jagged washer.
• As I started to take off the top part of the painted metal chassis, I thought the screws for the chassis was fairly tight, but not too tight. (Btw, one screw on each side, rear side, also has a jagged washer.)
• The fuse section of this unit, apparently has a small room containing an additional 5A, 250V glass fuse). Unsure if having some other fuse is ideal or not for a power supply connected to 230V.
Bad things so far:
• The "Korad" logo was only halfway printed on the front display, the lower half.
• The components inside seem to have a little bit of some fine dust all over.
• The strip of stripped paint on the upper and lower chassis, which I think must be the way the top chassis is grounded to the bottom part, seems a little too casual imo. Probably a good idea to tighten the screws well
Some things I've been wondering about:
• Not sure what to think about the glass fuse, as I have heard that there are something called HCR fuses as well, that I naviely think of as a possible improvement, but I could be wrong.
• I don't like the stripped paint parts for what might be creating a connection for ground, between top and bottom part of the chassis, maybe I could carefully remove some more paint?
• I wonder how long the mechanical power button switch will last.
• Will the power button safely cut the power as per design, or do I risk having the unit still output power when the power button is in the OFF state when something goes wrong with the unit?
• I will guess that the fan will be somewhat loud, which I won't like. Modding the fan might perhaps not be safe I fear. The fan sucks the air out btw, I initially imagined that the fan blew air into the unit, but I guess there would be too much dust going into the unit that way.
• The photos show some white paste around some components, I wonder what that is. I guess it could be some kind of special type of glue for electronics.
The photos (Note, I have since taking the photos flipped the 110V switch over to 220V on the back side of the unit, and I have to buy a new "Euro"
C16 C13 power cable to get to use this unit anyway):