Precautions before opening up a power supply

[aldy402]

Ok Im gonna replace the fans in my OCZ Powerstream 600 SLI, its my first time so what kind of precauctions do I need to take before frying the psu or myself ? I already got the anti-static wrist strap. What else?

thanks

 

[Ice Czar]

well at least youll be grounded for any electrocution
take off the grounding strap
you want to be insulated not grounded

generally
1. Disconnect the power supply from the wall outlet. If the PSU has a switch, leave it on.
2. Hit the power button on the computer a few times. (with it attached to the mobo)

avoid touching anything but what your working on (the fan & its connection) use insulated tools. (rubber covers)

now to fully discharge a supply sort of depends on its circuits, ideally you place a resistor across aeach of the caps. But generally speaking, unless you have a heart condition, the shock youd sustain wouldnt be much but a wakeup call, provided the unit is unplugged from the wall. You might want to do that if your doing a far more extensive mod, but for a fan swap its generally considered overkill.

A 6800 uF capacitor (about ten times the size of those in ATX PSUs)that I charged to 18V several months ago is currently at 13.4V, so I wouldn't rely upon leaving the PSU unplugged for several weeks to drain off the voltage.

Some of my PSUs make a noise just before the LED on the mobo goes dim, and it's never taken more than twenty seconds. If for some reason this doesn't work, then PSUs usually have or are supposed to have an approx. 200K ohm resistor across each big high voltage capacitors, and if this capacitor is 1,000 uF, then the resistor should discharge it in 200K ohms X 1,000uF X 5 = 1,000 seconds, or 16.7 minutes. Unless a resistor or something else around one of those capacitors looks burnt or ruptured, then the resistors have probably done their job. But you have to know what those resistors look like.

people swap fans all the time by employing the first method

 

[aldy402]

thanks!

 

[Ice Czar]

for brownie points, get a rubber mat to stand on anytime there is even a potential of getting a shock, the idea here is to avoid becoming the best ground circuit yourself

Ive latched hold of 115V a few dozen times and even 220V once, the 115V was merely a funny feeling and not even so strong that I couldnt let go, the reason was beacuse I was a poor conductor, standing on carpet with rubber soled shoes, same wire with someone in bare feet in a pool of water would be in serious trouble and the amps would likely be high enough to contract the muscles and "freeze" you from escape.

The 220 knocked me cold

 

[aldy402]

for brownie points, get a rubber mat to stand on anytime there is even a potential of getting a shock, the idea here is to avoid becoming the best ground circuit yourself

Ive latched hold of 115V a few dozen times and even 220V once, the 115V was merely a funny feeling and not even so strong that I couldnt let go, the reason was beacuse I was a poor conductor, standing on carpet with rubber soled shoes, same wire with someone in bare feet in a pool of water would be in serious trouble and the amps would likely be high enough to contract the muscles and "freeze" you from escape.

The 220 knocked me cold

lol thats funny, its seems like you have A LOT of experience
Im replacing the 2 fans in my Powerstream 600, they seem to be native 2pins.

I was going to take the 3 pin connector off my 2 panaflo fans, leave the rpm/thermal wire out and connect it to the the 2pin connector taken from the psu's stock fans. Woudl that work?

 

[aldy402]

actually i found these

http://svc.com/pan80.html

they come with 2 bare wire leads, will I be able to just yank off the 2pin connectors from the old fans and just stick it on these?

 

[Borgschulze]

See I'm just so great I would swap the PSU fan while it's turned on, for less down time of course.

But really, just don't touch the back of the circuit board with all the nipples on it, and don't touch the heatsinks, sometimes they can shock you. I have a cardboard box computer with a naked PSU in it with just a piece of plastic under the circuit board and zip ties holding it to the side of the box. works fine.

But yeah, don't wear that wrist strap, it could get you shocked worse, that's for handling stuff you don't want to get ESD (The strap makes the electricity go through you instead of the parts). I don't think you would want that capacitor shocking you, even a little disposable camera with a flash capacitor in it hurts alot (Past experience.)