One thing you forgot to mention is certification. Generally, any device sold in North America that uses high voltage inside has to be UL rated or equivalent. By keeping the power supply outside of the device, you can re-use the same UL-rated power supply with multiple devices without having to get each one certified individually.
For sure... Designing a power supply that meets UL and CE requirements and having them certified is expensive. Lot of companies doesn't even do it and rely on companies that just do power supplies and sell to a lot of other companies.
I remember when I was in middle school. One of the pins in the power adapter for my laptop broke. So I got the brilliant Idea to cut the cable off the adapter, and the plug of the cable for the power adapter's power, then spliced it together. I took care to tape the splices individually with painter's tape( because I didn't have electrical tape) then again with packaging tape. I plugged it into the wall cautiously. Nothing happened,( I must have done it right!) Then with the greatest sense of accomplishment I've ever felt at that point I went and plugged the other end into my laptop, there was a short pop, then a loud ass pop that rang through the house, and the power shut off in both mine and my sister's room. My family thought it was a lightning strike, I let them believe it.
@@SnipCola28 Right? Man a is a dam genius. Shock yourself safely, albeit painfully, but also use it as a teaching tool. I have a few buds in electrical and civil engineering classes when they are working on wiring, would show some of his videos.
@@TROONTRON Not entirely true, EMI can be managed with good design techniques. It's when you half-arse the design is when you get into EMI/EMC trouble.
actually its not the conversion from ac to dc that is the problem. its voltage. the biggest part of an adapter is the transformer. bridge rectifiers can be really really small.
This video is so wrong. Switching power supplies are called switching because of the way they work. ALL switching power supply convert AC to DC in the initial phase (in a 220V system the DC rises to something like 400V). Then a switching circuitry sends current impulses (15KHz - 50KHz) into a transformer. Those impulses are driven in a way that the output from the transformer is exactly what the power supply is designed to output. This has nothing to do with the fact that they can adapt to 220 or 110V outlets (actually not all switchers can adapt to this automatically.. a lot o them still has a 220/110 selector). And regarding the integrated power supply (like your example... the monitor) is still switching power supply. TVs also has switching power supplies.... consoles... basically any device used today.. has a switching power supply.
That's not why they're called switching power supplies. They're switchmode power supplies. They contain a control chip that turns on and off at a much higher frequency than the utility supply. The high frequency means that a smaller transformer can be used, saving space and money, as well as reducing waste heat. The control chip monitors the output voltage and adjusts it by altering the switching. The switching is why some phone power bricks make a whining noise, and it's pretty much the same reason for the coil whine you get from some graphics cards and motherboards.
Yea i didn't know what is a switching adapter, but that part felt wrong, because why would it be more efficient just because you can use it with both 110V and 220V. That way it would be more convinient, but not more efficient.
A linear supply regulates the voltage using resistance. 110V is turned 12V by dropping the remainder across a device. If your device uses 1A of current, that's over 100W of power to get rid of. They used to use a transformer to turn 110V into something more manageable like 15V, but you might still end up with 5W of waste heat coming out of a component the size of the end of your finger. A switchmode power supply regulates to 12V by chopping up the 60 or 50 Hz into something much higher like 100kHz or more. Higher frequency means smaller transformers, and that means lower losses to heat. Next on the other side of the transformer you just just need a diode and capacitor to turn the high frequency AC into DC. The diode wastes some heat, but not much. Now the controller is on the high voltage side, and gets feed back from the low voltage side to tell it when the voltage passes the right level. If it's too low it switches more and boosts more power through, and if it's too high it backs off a bit. Yes this it's a simplification, but I think it works. For an analogy, imagine you have a tap that you have to use to keep a pool filled to the right level. Now the tap has two settings; off and full blast. You have to turn the tap on and off to keep the level right.
@@NeneExists Linear power supply does not work by resistance. They are bulky because of the transformer. You are right about switch mode power supply though. And Linus totally misunderstood what switching power supply mean. I wonder who wrote the script for this video, it doesn't take that much research to understand the working principle of smps
I think the linear power supply you mentioned is linear dc to dc converter, like 7805. They are not efficient, and no one use them to drop high voltage like 110 to 5. Linear ac to dc converter use transformer, rectifier, capacitor and their efficiency is not too bad. Still worse than a switch mode of course.
@@thaibinhphamdinh1299 P=VI, if you're passing current, and your device is dropping voltage it has to go somewhere, V=IR, so P=I^2*R. If you're dissipating power, it's through a resistance in a piece of silicon somewhere. Why do power MOSFETs or rectifier diodes get hot if they don't have an internal resistance which is doing that?
Linus. I really like your videos, but this video has some cringeworthy explainations. LIke many people already commented and explained in detail, a switched-mode power supply is not called that way because it switches between different mains voltages. Guys with electrical engineering background are screaming while watching this video :)
i expected the video to explain why power adapter is bulky and maybe talk at lease a little bit about how switched mode power supply works from the aspect of electronic components.
I also use my Xbox One power adaptor as a small room heater. Of course, I do have my Xbox One on all night. (It's true, powering off and on your devices over a long period of time causes it to lose its longevity)
Just because transistors are getting smaller doesn't mean inductors can get smaller too, which power bricks need to regulate voltage. Some things in physics just aren't capable of being shrunken down to save space, in the name of power efficiency.
Well specifically in the case of inductors that isn't entirely true, you can run an inductor at a higher frequency to get away with using a smaller inductor (and in turn smaller capacitors), but of course it does still need to be thick enough to handle the current passing through it and after a certain point causes power losses. www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2015/feb/design-trade-offs-when-selecting-a-high-frequency-switching-regulator
I noticed that he really didn't cover the main job of converting mains power (120 or 240v) down the voltages needed by the specific device which in most cases, is not mains voltage. You can't just convert 120v AC to 120v DC and feed it into most electronics, unless you want a 1-time use smoke machine and a dead device.
Actually, one of the advantages of switching-mode power supplies i that they can have smaller transformers, because of a higher switching rate. Maybe the transformers can get smaller if we manage to get an even higher switching frequency.
I spent 5 years in the seventies in a factory making switching power supplies for mainframes. These where about 24 inches long, 8 inches wide and about 6 inches tall and they weighed a huge amount.
You have given one of the best reasons for the updating of our current main panel here in America [and Canada] to the European DIN rail style. Since this is an industrial and more robust system. Our current system is behind, a good 15 to 20 years to the European. Take for a example the common light bulb… it has the LED’s and a small Converter Driver housed in. While they could be a few in the main panel doing the job to drive the whole house [or units per floor]. Bring in down the cost and usage of current. Just one example. The whole wiring in today’s house needs to be redesign; period. Starting at the plants, houses main panel and so on.
I’m an EE with 20+ yrs experience. Good video for a basic overview! Some of the factors that drive size are: 1: Safety (there are physical space requirements to keep the dangerous AC power away from the relatively safe DC power you might touch). Also we have to have minimum insulation to prevent things from accidentally wearing and electrocuting you. 2: noise. You touched on this. There are two kinds of noise Radiated (wireless) and Conducted. Radiated is dealt with by proximity (which you described), shielding, or careful filtering at different parts of the power circuit. Filtering almost always adds size and reduces efficiency (which makes heat) and is a difficult balancing act. Conducted noise comes to play with regulatory compliance. You don’t want your device making a lot of electrical noise on the AC line that can mess up other devices. Govt agencies (FCC, IC, CE) have limits on this noise level to make sure we all play nice. Again that means filters which can be quite large. The technology has improved a lot and today’s components are far better; however, there are some fundamental physics limitations that determine size of these parts. That being said, there is a lot of innovation and investment to produce more efficient and small power adapters. New methods are already drastically reducing the part count and complexity which makes my job as an engineer easier to meet challenging size and packaging desires. Again, great video! Thanks!
Could you (if you haven't already) do one over building your own pc, like specifically talking about the components are, what they do, and which ones you can trade out (ex: ssd and hard drives), as well as what you have to actually have to make a PC that turns on and runs (like the absolute basics of a normal everyday use kinda PC)? If you've already done it I must have missed it. And I love all of yalls content it's really helpful and informative!
0:20 that laptop is the one that i have, just with an extra USB port. Its a lenovo ideapad 300 series and the power adaptor is actually quite small for a £300 laptop
This is still an area that tech companies can push. Apple doesn’t use external power bricks in their iMac’s or Mac Mini’s, and their laptop bricks are still fairly small. As phone chargers need bigger and bigger power units, and laptops chargers are increasingly becoming lower and lower wattage - I think we’ll see a point where the units combine and we just use USB C cables directly into the wall. Apple is almost there at the moment in that they recommend their 29 watt wall charger for both the iPhone and one of MacBooks, but hopefully this becomes more widely used by other manufacturers as well.
0:49 "The basic reason for this clunky boxes is that our modern electronics can not use the raw AC power that comes directly drom the wall. Instead it has to be converted to direct current or DC." While he says that a full-bridge rectifier is shown over the power brick. Of course, AC-DC-conversion has to be done, but that is not the reason why the power bricks are so big. Yes, later you also talk about the voltage conversion, which is really the reason for the size and weight, but that doesn't make that sentence at the begining less false. I just hope ElectroBOOM won't see this.
@@kingripass575 To be honest, it was a lie and I actually hope electroBOOM will see this, get mad about it and scream at Linus in a video. Or even better, there will be a new video that starts exactly like this one and at first we think it's a reupload. Then electroBOOM (what's even hos actual name?) enters the frame pushes Linus aside and contuniues to do the rest of the video. I think this could even work with respect on eye level. We and electroBOOM know that Linus and his team are actually good at their core skills they do on a regular basis. This is a little bit outside of their comfort zone so it's not really a big problem if they screw up a little bit.
One word- safety. In the UK, a mains socket can be dumping 5 x 32 x240 Watts into a faulty wallwart before the breaker trips a fraction of a second later. That's about 40kW. Think large fireball. Don't buy cheap wallwarts, period - you really, really don't want that to happen. Ones on a lead with a mains plug are far safer (in the UK) - there's a fuse in the plug that can limit that power dump to 5x3x240 Watts. Think quite small fireball. If you really must use no name wallwarts - plug them into an extension lead with a plug fitted with a 3A fuse. Size, as they say, does matter. But quality matters more.
Nice video. I found it both entertaining and educational. I like how you simplify a concept in a way that the general population would understand without knowing much about how electricity works. I also really enjoyed the outro for this video it was pretty amusing.
Linus, are you aware of a major reason why manufacturers use external power adapters? There is a loophole in allowable RF emissions regulations: Manufacturers only have to submit one model of a power supply for certification. They will build a power supply with quality components, get that "version" certified, then start cutting corners on internal components until the power supply greatly exceeds RF radiation limits. (With a cable toner, you can hear these "dirty" power adapters for laptops and electronics from across a room!) These RF emissions/dirty adapters are bad for connected devices, interfere with other devices, often exceed federally recommended RF radiation exposure limits which is bad for humans, they don't last as long, and they are less efficient. By building the power supplies outside of devices, they can more easily cheap out in this way.
Just enough info for most viewers to gain a better understanding of AC/DC conversion. Yes there are some holes but this isn't a power electronics seminar. Good work. I approve, and I design these switch mode PSU for a living.
It would be more convenient for Apple chargers to be like laptop charger, so that that big bulky power supply can just go off to the side and the thing can be plugged into the wall outlet without interfering with anything
smartphones could run on ac fine, its just that converting the line voltage requires significantly large isolation and comes with significant heat losses that you just dont want in a small device. I also dont want to imagine the port and cable required for that. It would be large and possibly dangerous.
No they couldn't. Batteries provide DC and as a result of that all components run on DC. Now, if you connected your device to a power source that gives out AC it would fry the components
@@dismiggo of course they could. not without modifications of course, i just said that you could make an AC powered smartphone. in a modern smartphone, youll find a power management system that actually converts the battery dc voltage to ac in order to convert it to a stabilized supply. this circuitry is also handling the charging process, also involving switched ac. again, my point was that ac is not the problem, the voltage is.
Plus points for using a full bridge rectifier schematic on the AC-DC animation. However that's not what switching power supplies are. "Switching" refers an on/off action made by the circuit to regulate the voltage. Also thinner/smaller components does not necessarily have too much resistance, but they do have lower AMPACITY, and that is why they have to be bigger.
Interesting question. The new type of switching transistors using Gallium Nitrite can under certain circumstances be almost 100% efficient. If planned correctly, this could mean exceptional efficient powers supplies for our mobile devices. Unfortunately, the technology is fairly new and therefore expensive, I heard prices for a prototype transistor of around 20 bucks. A long way ahed.
Ummmmm. That’s not why they call them “switching” power supplies. They’re called that because they switch on and off rapidly to create dc pulses that are then smoothed out by a capacitor(s) to output clean DC.
What happened to that video? I watched it pretty soon after they uploaded it and i realised that there were no comments, and when I refreshed the page it was unavailable
I remember my train set transformer which converted 240V to 12V and was the size of a shoebox and had an audible hum. The modern mobile phone charger has a power supply about the size of a mars bar. I was told the 240V goes through an oscillator circuit to say 20K Hz which means the transformer can be really small. My trainset transformer probably ran at 50Hz.
As a side not, SMPSs themselves ARE extremely efficient (depending on the operating conditions). The bulk and power consumption mostly comes from first rectifying the mains power, then cleaning up the output of the switching regulator itself. In regards to bulk, transformers are commonly used on the mains side to both isolate the device and bring down the cost and size of the rectifying components. Additionally, the more power required, the larger (both physically and in terms capacitance/inductance) inductors and capacitors you'll need to smooth out the pulsed output of the controller.. That's why your phone's charger (just look at the kindle's 5V adapter) can be so tiny while performance laptops have bricks that really earn the name. In regards to inefficiency, as I mentioned, rectifying the signals is where most of this is lost. First of all, SMPSs are DC-DC converters, IE, they need a DC signal to function, so the AC signal needs to be rectified.To rectify an AC signal, you will typically use a bridge rectifier consisting of rectifier diodes. For the most part, they have extremely low on-state resistance, so that can mostly be ignored. However, they do have a threshold voltage which must be overcome before they begin conducting. P=IV, where P is power, I is current, and V is voltage drop across the device. Even if the material used to create the diode is a super conductor, that threshold voltage will remain, and the power consumption of each of the diodes will be directly proportional to the input current. The rectified sine wave then needs to be smoothed out via capacitors. The higher the voltage input, the lower the losses in the diodes, but the cost and size of the components needed to rectify, smooth, and convert that high input skyrocket as well. Then, the output of the switching controller driving the converter is essentially a pulse-width-modulated signal, so it switches between 0V and the input voltage at a certain rate. That is then connected to a capacitor, inductor, and dioede configured for the specific use case required for the application (do we need a higher output, lower output, or both?). The more power draw required, the larger the components will need to be. Finally, as you mentioned in the video, there are RF concerns. While part of that has to do with the conversion process itself, there is also the issue that no matter how large the output inductor and capacitor that you use are, there will be some ripple in your output. I.E. it's not very clean power. For sensitive electronics, that's a problem. To get perfectly clean power, you'll need to go back to the linear converters you mentioned at the beginning. They typically consist of a zener diode and a resistor. When the voltage is above the reverse threshold of the zener diode, it will conduct to pull enough power to drop the voltage down to that threshold voltage, and the "missing" voltage is dropped across the resistor. To increase the efficiency, you will want to select a linear regulator that is as close as possible to the bottom of the ripple voltage without risking some other phenomena that I won't address here. That concludes my TED talk. Thank you all for coming.
And DO NOT buy cheep Chinese power adaptors / phone chargers from ebay. Often made to very poor safety standards, and the mains reference voltage can leak across to the low voltage side. Several teenagers killed in the last few yrs charging their phone while in the bath !. 1. You should never do that. But had it been a genuine apple adaptor etc that would not have happened.
I have opened a fake apple one and seen that secondary was touching primary!!!!!!! Usb and plug were literaly seperated trough a diode and the super thin isolation of the magnet wire!!!! Also the single diode (this is China did you expect full bridge rectifier?) and capacitor were arranged in a way that could create a voltage doubler which in the worst case you could have up to 680v in the usb!!!!!
Anyways ebay sells super damgerous stuff for instance i have seen a water heater that heats the water by passing mains through it!! MAINS!! LIVE AND NEUTRAL WERE CONNECTED INTO SOME METAL BARS AND THEN YOU SUBMERGED THIS INTO THE WATER!!! And there you go! You have live water with a very dangerous voltage referenced to ground! China is incredible!
I wouldn't be surprised if some brand name items are bad too, a lot are just relabelled, cheaply made items. Hopefully they're certified in the country they're sold in(when not imported directly from overseas by the customer), but a lot of products do feel 'iffy' now.
Should probably correct this as switching adapters are not called switching for that reason. They use an oscillator to buck (google Buck Converter) the voltage down from the rectified source.
They don't oscillate... They have a controller that controls output frequency and duty cycle. It switches a transistor on and off.... Also many PSUs don't use buck converters. They may use SEPTICS/Flybacks etc because they're isolated and get whatever output voltage you need.
@@ericcartmann Indeed. PWM is a special case of oscillation. As for the "PSU" bit, yes that is true too, but for most wall-warts they use a cheap-chip converter. Buck converters are just a good starting point to google to learn the black magic of DC-DC converters.
@@dnsmcbr104 lmao oscillation implies some kind of LC/RC filter or crystal. Oscillations are analog in nature. Converters drive a square pulse to the gates of mosfets and bases of BJTs. This isn't an oscillation, it's a driven signal.
@@ericcartmann Oscillators to me imply anything that goes up/down in a controlled or predictable manner. Probably an incorrect definition in the generic space, but in my EE bubble, it gets me by.
@@IamUzyf yes, they are. It's physics. It depends on the specific materials and uses you need. I don't know where you like but maybe if you look up in a electric post and see a big square box that's a transformer. It's big ain't it.
@@Shikimorirorokun transformers in linear power supplies were big and very heavy. In modern SMPS designs, they have shrunk a lot because they work at much higher frequency nowadays, 20kHz or so.
Each time I get the "you can check this video in here" (1:03) I get left out because I use my phone to see TH-cam. Could you put in the description all the quoted videos?
Forgot to mention the reason they have not been shrinking much even for the small ones. It's safety regulations. You need certain levels of isolation to protect your device and you from being electrocuted with the raw mains voltage or a sudden surge such as a power bump. These safety requirements all require certain minimum distances to be respected depending on voltages, materials, etc but in the end they all add size. Also specific certificate parts have to be used on the mains side such as safety rated capacitors which are not cheap or small when compared regular ones. It's all about getting the AC voltage down safely to a extra low voltage safe level that can't electrocute us.
well if you need 12 Volts DC from a 120 Volts AC, first you need a place to store that Voltage, second it needs to be small enough to not cook that component... so you start with a resistance or a transformer... (a electromagnet that powers a smaller copper wire coil) with than the next step is to make that current one way, you need a Diode because that can only flow power one way. those are weak just like Capacitors hence why the transformer is first. the Diode is next only letting half of the wave form in (+ or Plus), then you need an other Diode plugged (- or Minus) in reverse. both output plugged on a Capacitor. then you might need a resistor or some thing like that to get the Volts at the right number. so in simple therms, transform to lower power, trim and sort (align) the Waveform to a line, amass the power, deliver at the proper output level. so you start with power that looks like this "WWWW" and then like this "wwww" then like this "----".
@@squishyu well i am not exactly an electrician so i am just guessing the bare minimum you would need to do... heck i still have a hard time accepting that the power is not pushed out from the plus... that is so backwards to make power based from what Electrons gets deducted from instead of from what Electrons comes out of.
I heard, that we are slowly reaching the "limit of silicon" in computerchip performance. A video about why that is, or the future, more powerful technologies would be great. I'm really interested in how exactly a computer works, even on the smallest scale. So, a video about that would be nice, but its probably too complicated for such a large audience. Anyway, you guys are great. Keep going.
So why don't we instead build in AC to DC converters inside of our houses and just have them live in the walls or the basement or something? Seems like a better idea.
It does sound good in theory, but in practicality it gets complicated very quickly. For instance, different electronics require different voltages. How would you be able to adjust the voltage according to the device you use? Also, there are so many different types of adapters and connectors that devices use, how would you be able to adapt for all those devices?
@@alexkalicharan8283 and easy explanation right there. On top of that. The average person doesnt know squat about electricity. It's much safer for the producer to supply what their products need vs leaving it up to the consumer to know better.
"Ok so the ac/ac transformer is in, what else should we do?" "Add a capacitor so there's no ac feedback" "There's microamps of feedback now, but its probably fin-" "Put this big one in" "Ok but I dont thin-" "Put two, I dont care about weight" And that's how you get the old adapters that are just... massive.
Linus uses xbox 360 power adapters as murder weapons. Edit. Wow 7 months later I forgot about this comment and didnt expect this many likes. Thanks. :]
Standardization helps by letting you carry fewer proprietary power supplies. This has improved a lot in recent years. I pay a few $ extra for camera battery chargers than can run from a USB charging brick.
He missed the main point. AC wall electricity is dangerous because its ac and its high voltage. Phones are very abused, they get dropped and dropped in water(sometimes even salty water which is conductive). A failure in the power adapter can result in a overvolt of different components in the phone's/laptop board and damage to them. It might also exposed or short the live wires which is the most frightening to me
High voltage is not dangerous. High voltage mixed with high current is dangerous. Most water in general (other than distilled) is conductive due to the minerals and metals often in it. A failure of the power adapter will likely just destroy the charging circuit of the phone, nothing else.
@@Anton-cv2ti Phone adapters are abused but they are plastic. Normaly the internal fuse in the adapter will burn before a adapter gets that exposed that you risk touching the high voltage side. A faulty phone with 230v and metal frame (has to be used due to antenna technology) can cause a hell of a problem and really not healthy, especially for someone with a heart problem
"Switching power supply'" comes from the mode of the transistors in the power supply (wrong in the video). In older power supplies they use to work in "linear mode" (linear regulators? Sounds familiar :D ) In that mode we have realy steady voltages, low electric noise and lot of heat (correct in the video). Newer PSUs use switching transistors in combination with inductors (chokes like the one next to the GPU/CPU) i.e. they are just on or off. There is no middle point. That gives high eficiency, less heat to disapate and higher electric noise (No wonder that you can hear strange noises in your speakers. They are comming mostly from some PSUs (not in all cases but in most). Linus that time you messed it up. Ask Louis about what he thinks about the video :D
Hey! Can laptop vacuum coolers damage the battery or the AC adapter? My laptop's AC adapter got damaged and I had to replace it . This happened after 5 days of using the Cooler. I have an MSI GL63 with dual side vents and dual back vents.
Between the shrinking size of higher power adapters and the shrinking size of motherboards in laptops as more stuff gets integrated into fewer chips, many modern laptops have plenty of internal space to spare for an internal AC-DC supply. I suspect their main reason to still use external bricks is simply to delegate the liabilities and safety certifications for AC-powered equipment to a third-party supplier.
yup, i agree. Also, you'd have to make sure the insulation inside the notebook is good enough. If you have voltages like 20v dc and below, it literally doesn't matter. However, if you have parts of the notebook running at 240AC, you'd have to make sure that that part is very well insulated, which isn't as easy inside a notebook. For a desktop thats easy, just put the whole thing in a metal case and ground that thing, easy. Can't do that in a notebook.
@@jort93z It isn't really that difficult to isolate the PSU from the rest of a laptop, just need to mold a partition in the cover to keep it away from any conductive structural component. My Acer laptop from a couple of years ago is almost half empty space inside due to not having an optical drive, enough space to fit two or three of its AC 50W adapters. The biggest problem would be the AC cable: modern laptops are too thin to fit an IEC C6 socket, a thinner lower-power standard would be necessary. May need to go UK-style fuse-in-plug to protect the thinner gauge wires and connectors from meltdown.
@@jort93z While ground may not be absolutely necessary, what is most likely to fail in typical adapters is the separation between primary and secondary inside the transformer since smaller transformers put the windings closer together. If transformer insulation fails, I'd rather have 110-250V go to ground and blow a fuse than going to every piece of exposed metal on the laptop and all connected devices. Those connected devices, their connectors and cables should also stand a better chance of surviving with most of the fault current returning directly through the failing PSU's ground.
@@teardowndan5364 Well, you have the same problem on normal, external powersupplies. Your notebook isn't usually grounded. If your powerbrick fails with mains voltage on its output, your notebook will become live. The idea is that you are confident enough that it is not gonna fail and you won't have to ground any equipment on the low side.
You need to realise that would render normal AC Appliances such as Fridge Freezers,Microwaves,Toasters and Electric Kettles etc totally useless as appliances like the ones I have mentioned use normal AC Electricity.
Another reason why some devices do not have internal power supplies is that if the device plugs into the wall, it needs to be certified for safety before you an sell it. Certification costs money and it is cheaper to certify the external power supply once and sell multiple devices that can use it. That being said, I dislike when a device with no batteries has an external power supply. I also prefer linear power supplies or at least power supplies with 50Hz transformers (the voltage regulator after the transformer can be switch-mode) because they are easier to repair than switching power supplies. And cheap PC power supplies with Active PFC (and crappy high voltage caps) have a very annoying failure mode where the power supply blows up and trips the circuit breaker. Now you have to turn the circuit breaker back on to get your other devices working again.
I have no idea what the Jasper is I thought there was just three Xbox 360 the one that was white the one that was black and the one that was shaped like an Xbox One and yes I know the original 360 came in black and was called the elite but the black one I'm referring to is often referred to as the s
Technically speaking, power bricks are big because of big transformers and inductors inside. Their size are limited by transistors' switching frequency. Higher switching frequency can make use of smaller transformers. But there is a tradeoff between frequency and efficiency, using smaller transformer requires transistors to switch faster, but the transistor has switching loss as it transit from on state to off state. Higher frequency means higher switching loss, which pretty much explains the current limitation of silicon-based MOSFET. The solution is either use more efficient GaN MOSFET (at higher cost), or use different switching topology like ZVS regulator which eliminates switching loss once and for all at the cost of more complex design.
Could you have just one main transformer at the point of entry (ie. your house or office mains inlet) and that supplies all points with DC power? Or is that too simple (or dangerous)?
@@camilo3626 this part of the video is not meant describe how each work only what each means to the user. Describing a switching power supply as being able to switch voltage is the easiest and clearest way to get across that they can work in more situations even if the switching part does not refer to this.
3:55 I think the wording you chose there is very poor to the point it is wrong. A power supply doesn't consume 1000 watts or more, it supplies, or converts, 1000 watts or more. A supply does not consume power, the components attached to it do. Also, I believe your destinction between linear and switching power supplies wasn't very good. I don't feel you quite got the point across how a switching power supply differs from a linear one.
One thing you forgot to mention is certification. Generally, any device sold in North America that uses high voltage inside has to be UL rated or equivalent. By keeping the power supply outside of the device, you can re-use the same UL-rated power supply with multiple devices without having to get each one certified individually.
Came here to say this. This is by far the most important reason for external power bricks.
For sure... Designing a power supply that meets UL and CE requirements and having them certified is expensive. Lot of companies doesn't even do it and rely on companies that just do power supplies and sell to a lot of other companies.
The samsung odyssey g9 eliminated power bricks
To convert ac to DC you need a FUUUUULLL BRIDGE RECTIFIAAAA
+1 if you know
Game Linked ElectroBOOM
much?
ElectroBOOM
@@faudanke4459 Thank you for your contribution
It was fun to make our own in my 4th year electrician course. Was super fun to put one of the diodes in backwards and burnt the board 🤣
Game Linked fuuuull briiidge rectifiyahhh
LMG: Linus were out of video ideas
Linus: *looks at ground
Linus: that’s one thiccc power adapter
LMG: were on it
Lol
Most underrated comment in history.
we're*
I remember when I was in middle school. One of the pins in the power adapter for my laptop broke. So I got the brilliant Idea to cut the cable off the adapter, and the plug of the cable for the power adapter's power, then spliced it together. I took care to tape the splices individually with painter's tape( because I didn't have electrical tape) then again with packaging tape. I plugged it into the wall cautiously. Nothing happened,( I must have done it right!) Then with the greatest sense of accomplishment I've ever felt at that point I went and plugged the other end into my laptop, there was a short pop, then a loud ass pop that rang through the house, and the power shut off in both mine and my sister's room. My family thought it was a lightning strike, I let them believe it.
as long as you didnt do it a 2nd time, id say that was a great educational experience
I did the same but with my Internet modem 😂😂
Genuinely was about to do this exact same thing yesterday but my dad told me not to lol
oops
Just make a bunch of FOOOLLL BRRRIDDGGEEE RECTIFIERS
Electroboom fans unite!
not your idea
electroBOOM xD i like him too
th-cam.com/video/sI5Ftm1-jik/w-d-xo.html
@@SnipCola28 Right? Man a is a dam genius. Shock yourself safely, albeit painfully, but also use it as a teaching tool. I have a few buds in electrical and civil engineering classes when they are working on wiring, would show some of his videos.
#TLDR
Reasons why they're big:
- Semiconductors are not entirely efficient (Look up PowerMOS, GaN, SiC) = Heat + Heatsinks
- Isolation from Primary Side/Secondary Side (UL Regulations)
- Bulk Caps & Transformers
get pinned
Although it's probably not a reason per se it's also worth noting that smaller adapters create a shitton more static interference than the big ones.
Also, larger components for higher ampacity.
@@TROONTRON Not entirely true, EMI can be managed with good design techniques. It's when you half-arse the design is when you get into EMI/EMC trouble.
Some very good reasons as to why power packs are big.
0:33
Crime investigator : What was the murder weapon?
Police : A power adapter
Lmao
That was lateral cranium impact enhancer.
actually its not the conversion from ac to dc that is the problem.
its voltage.
the biggest part of an adapter is the transformer.
bridge rectifiers can be really really small.
Usually the capacitors on the rectified mains voltage side are fairly bulky too though, and you need those even when you don't step down the voltage.
This video is so wrong. Switching power supplies are called switching because of the way they work. ALL switching power supply convert AC to DC in the initial phase (in a 220V system the DC rises to something like 400V). Then a switching circuitry sends current impulses (15KHz - 50KHz) into a transformer. Those impulses are driven in a way that the output from the transformer is exactly what the power supply is designed to output. This has nothing to do with the fact that they can adapt to 220 or 110V outlets (actually not all switchers can adapt to this automatically.. a lot o them still has a 220/110 selector). And regarding the integrated power supply (like your example... the monitor) is still switching power supply. TVs also has switching power supplies.... consoles... basically any device used today.. has a switching power supply.
Wow
i disagree
Stop copying electroboom fancy words
😅😅😅
That's not why they're called switching power supplies. They're switchmode power supplies. They contain a control chip that turns on and off at a much higher frequency than the utility supply. The high frequency means that a smaller transformer can be used, saving space and money, as well as reducing waste heat. The control chip monitors the output voltage and adjusts it by altering the switching.
The switching is why some phone power bricks make a whining noise, and it's pretty much the same reason for the coil whine you get from some graphics cards and motherboards.
Yea i didn't know what is a switching adapter, but that part felt wrong, because why would it be more efficient just because you can use it with both 110V and 220V. That way it would be more convinient, but not more efficient.
A linear supply regulates the voltage using resistance. 110V is turned 12V by dropping the remainder across a device. If your device uses 1A of current, that's over 100W of power to get rid of. They used to use a transformer to turn 110V into something more manageable like 15V, but you might still end up with 5W of waste heat coming out of a component the size of the end of your finger.
A switchmode power supply regulates to 12V by chopping up the 60 or 50 Hz into something much higher like 100kHz or more. Higher frequency means smaller transformers, and that means lower losses to heat. Next on the other side of the transformer you just just need a diode and capacitor to turn the high frequency AC into DC. The diode wastes some heat, but not much. Now the controller is on the high voltage side, and gets feed back from the low voltage side to tell it when the voltage passes the right level. If it's too low it switches more and boosts more power through, and if it's too high it backs off a bit. Yes this it's a simplification, but I think it works.
For an analogy, imagine you have a tap that you have to use to keep a pool filled to the right level. Now the tap has two settings; off and full blast. You have to turn the tap on and off to keep the level right.
@@NeneExists Linear power supply does not work by resistance. They are bulky because of the transformer. You are right about switch mode power supply though.
And Linus totally misunderstood what switching power supply mean. I wonder who wrote the script for this video, it doesn't take that much research to understand the working principle of smps
I think the linear power supply you mentioned is linear dc to dc converter, like 7805. They are not efficient, and no one use them to drop high voltage like 110 to 5. Linear ac to dc converter use transformer, rectifier, capacitor and their efficiency is not too bad. Still worse than a switch mode of course.
@@thaibinhphamdinh1299 P=VI, if you're passing current, and your device is dropping voltage it has to go somewhere, V=IR, so P=I^2*R. If you're dissipating power, it's through a resistance in a piece of silicon somewhere. Why do power MOSFETs or rectifier diodes get hot if they don't have an internal resistance which is doing that?
Linus. I really like your videos, but this video has some cringeworthy explainations.
LIke many people already commented and explained in detail, a switched-mode power supply is not called that way because it switches between different mains voltages.
Guys with electrical engineering background are screaming while watching this video :)
I'm screaming
@@Shikimorirorokun me too was expecting something like PWMs small transformers associated with switching frequency😁😁
Yup. If we used DC, power bricks would still be needed.
I'm still a high school student, but really passionate about electronics and circuitry, and this video made me cringe too
i expected the video to explain why power adapter is bulky and maybe talk at lease a little bit about how switched mode power supply works from the aspect of electronic components.
I backup/transcode film cam data on location.
Often Im stuck in a van in country, in winter 1-3am.
I put the adapters under my feet to keep warm.
I also use my Xbox One power adaptor as a small room heater.
Of course, I do have my Xbox One on all night.
(It's true, powering off and on your devices over a long period of time causes it to lose its longevity)
I'm*
Just because transistors are getting smaller doesn't mean inductors can get smaller too, which power bricks need to regulate voltage. Some things in physics just aren't capable of being shrunken down to save space, in the name of power efficiency.
Well specifically in the case of inductors that isn't entirely true, you can run an inductor at a higher frequency to get away with using a smaller inductor (and in turn smaller capacitors), but of course it does still need to be thick enough to handle the current passing through it and after a certain point causes power losses.
www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2015/feb/design-trade-offs-when-selecting-a-high-frequency-switching-regulator
I noticed that he really didn't cover the main job of converting mains power (120 or 240v) down the voltages needed by the specific device which in most cases, is not mains voltage. You can't just convert 120v AC to 120v DC and feed it into most electronics, unless you want a 1-time use smoke machine and a dead device.
Actually, one of the advantages of switching-mode power supplies i that they can have smaller transformers, because of a higher switching rate. Maybe the transformers can get smaller if we manage to get an even higher switching frequency.
I spent 5 years in the seventies in a factory making switching power supplies for mainframes. These where about 24 inches long, 8 inches wide and about 6 inches tall and they weighed a huge amount.
Do writers proof read scripts? Linus looking silly a lot more lately using incorrect terms.
his writers have always been shit , hence why he has so much misinformation in his videos
Yeah I'm disappointed too
Why would you do that if you've got 2.8M subscribers and people are going to watch those stupid videos anyway
😡
&;$.4$€#^$.$:6€|€.\€.€$4$()/$::7/7}€:)€}^\€{€\#€&/
You have given one of the best reasons for the updating of our current main panel here in America [and Canada] to the European DIN rail style. Since this is an industrial and more robust system. Our current system is behind, a good 15 to 20 years to the European.
Take for a example the common light bulb… it has the LED’s and a small Converter Driver housed in. While they could be a few in the main panel doing the job to drive the whole house [or units per floor]. Bring in down the cost and usage of current. Just one example. The whole wiring in today’s house needs to be redesign; period. Starting at the plants, houses main panel and so on.
I’m an EE with 20+ yrs experience. Good video for a basic overview! Some of the factors that drive size are: 1: Safety (there are physical space requirements to keep the dangerous AC power away from the relatively safe DC power you might touch). Also we have to have minimum insulation to prevent things from accidentally wearing and electrocuting you. 2: noise. You touched on this. There are two kinds of noise Radiated (wireless) and Conducted. Radiated is dealt with by proximity (which you described), shielding, or careful filtering at different parts of the power circuit. Filtering almost always adds size and reduces efficiency (which makes heat) and is a difficult balancing act. Conducted noise comes to play with regulatory compliance. You don’t want your device making a lot of electrical noise on the AC line that can mess up other devices. Govt agencies (FCC, IC, CE) have limits on this noise level to make sure we all play nice. Again that means filters which can be quite large. The technology has improved a lot and today’s components are far better; however, there are some fundamental physics limitations that determine size of these parts. That being said, there is a lot of innovation and investment to produce more efficient and small power adapters. New methods are already drastically reducing the part count and complexity which makes my job as an engineer easier to meet challenging size and packaging desires.
Again, great video! Thanks!
As the GaN switchers come out, the efficiency can go way up.
but never reach 100%
@@besserwisser4055 of course. I think TI has a Dev board, around 40w, 97%efficiency. Pretty crazy.
@@leozendo3500 link plz for research
Just a random example I found www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/content.do?id=18592
i have a wall USB plug that has GaN, way smaller than others of the same wattage. love it
is there a build video for that computer at @3:34
Could you (if you haven't already) do one over building your own pc, like specifically talking about the components are, what they do, and which ones you can trade out (ex: ssd and hard drives), as well as what you have to actually have to make a PC that turns on and runs (like the absolute basics of a normal everyday use kinda PC)? If you've already done it I must have missed it. And I love all of yalls content it's really helpful and informative!
Jace Branham would be extremely useful
0:20 that laptop is the one that i have, just with an extra USB port. Its a lenovo ideapad 300 series and the power adaptor is actually quite small for a £300 laptop
"Smaller, lighter, more portable" I wish that were true for smartphones...
Are they not small and light enough already? Damn.
The samsung one is 2/3 cm
@@prescott231233 i think they refer to the size of the phone as a whole, like having a 6+inch screen.
Get an iphone 12 mini
@@bartvanriel6767 iPhone 😂
This is still an area that tech companies can push.
Apple doesn’t use external power bricks in their iMac’s or Mac Mini’s, and their laptop bricks are still fairly small.
As phone chargers need bigger and bigger power units, and laptops chargers are increasingly becoming lower and lower wattage - I think we’ll see a point where the units combine and we just use USB C cables directly into the wall.
Apple is almost there at the moment in that they recommend their 29 watt wall charger for both the iPhone and one of MacBooks, but hopefully this becomes more widely used by other manufacturers as well.
0:49 "The basic reason for this clunky boxes is that our modern electronics can not use the raw AC power that comes directly drom the wall. Instead it has to be converted to direct current or DC."
While he says that a full-bridge rectifier is shown over the power brick.
Of course, AC-DC-conversion has to be done, but that is not the reason why the power bricks are so big.
Yes, later you also talk about the voltage conversion, which is really the reason for the size and weight, but that doesn't make that sentence at the begining less false.
I just hope ElectroBOOM won't see this.
Bud i hope electroboom do not see it also
I saw it comming.
There will be a few of electroBOOM people here saying. FUUL BRIDGEEE RECTIFIYAH
@@kingripass575 To be honest, it was a lie and I actually hope electroBOOM will see this, get mad about it and scream at Linus in a video.
Or even better, there will be a new video that starts exactly like this one and at first we think it's a reupload. Then electroBOOM (what's even hos actual name?) enters the frame pushes Linus aside and contuniues to do the rest of the video.
I think this could even work with respect on eye level. We and electroBOOM know that Linus and his team are actually good at their core skills they do on a regular basis. This is a little bit outside of their comfort zone so it's not really a big problem if they screw up a little bit.
One word- safety. In the UK, a mains socket can be dumping 5 x 32 x240 Watts into a faulty wallwart before the breaker trips a fraction of a second later. That's about 40kW. Think large fireball. Don't buy cheap wallwarts, period - you really, really don't want that to happen. Ones on a lead with a mains plug are far safer (in the UK) - there's a fuse in the plug that can limit that power dump to 5x3x240 Watts. Think quite small fireball. If you really must use no name wallwarts - plug them into an extension lead with a plug fitted with a 3A fuse.
Size, as they say, does matter. But quality matters more.
Extension Leads actually use 13 Amp Fuses not 3 Amp
It annoys me when people with little electrical knowledge explain electrical subjects.
*E L E C T R I C A L* subjects
Nice video. I found it both entertaining and educational. I like how you simplify a concept in a way that the general population would understand without knowing much about how electricity works. I also really enjoyed the outro for this video it was pretty amusing.
they never used linear power adapters, they use 50Hz tansformers, and then after rectification linear voltage stabilizers
Actually those 50 hz transformers as you call them are indeed linear transformers
Linus, are you aware of a major reason why manufacturers use external power adapters? There is a loophole in allowable RF emissions regulations:
Manufacturers only have to submit one model of a power supply for certification. They will build a power supply with quality components, get that "version" certified, then start cutting corners on internal components until the power supply greatly exceeds RF radiation limits. (With a cable toner, you can hear these "dirty" power adapters for laptops and electronics from across a room!)
These RF emissions/dirty adapters are bad for connected devices, interfere with other devices, often exceed federally recommended RF radiation exposure limits which is bad for humans, they don't last as long, and they are less efficient. By building the power supplies outside of devices, they can more easily cheap out in this way.
Just enough info for most viewers to gain a better understanding of AC/DC conversion. Yes there are some holes but this isn't a power electronics seminar. Good work. I approve, and I design these switch mode PSU for a living.
It would be more convenient for Apple chargers to be like laptop charger, so that that big bulky power supply can just go off to the side and the thing can be plugged into the wall outlet without interfering with anything
smartphones could run on ac fine, its just that converting the line voltage requires significantly large isolation and comes with significant heat losses that you just dont want in a small device. I also dont want to imagine the port and cable required for that. It would be large and possibly dangerous.
No they couldn't. Batteries provide DC and as a result of that all components run on DC. Now, if you connected your device to a power source that gives out AC it would fry the components
@@dismiggo of course they could. not without modifications of course, i just said that you could make an AC powered smartphone.
in a modern smartphone, youll find a power management system that actually converts the battery dc voltage to ac in order to convert it to a stabilized supply. this circuitry is also handling the charging process, also involving switched ac.
again, my point was that ac is not the problem, the voltage is.
@@drkastenbrot Ok, now I got it as I re-read it. But it will still be impossible to manage, just because some components *need* DC
3:49 linus this is one wire how can 2 currents be running through it?
The External Brick of my 250W Dell Precision 7720 is half the weight and half the size of the 230W brick that came with my Dell XPS M1730.
John Hoggard mines bigger than the bricks used in trumps walls
Plus points for using a full bridge rectifier schematic on the AC-DC animation. However that's not what switching power supplies are. "Switching" refers an on/off action made by the circuit to regulate the voltage. Also thinner/smaller components does not necessarily have too much resistance, but they do have lower AMPACITY, and that is why they have to be bigger.
What about silicon vs gallium power supplies?
Interesting question. The new type of switching transistors using Gallium Nitrite can under certain circumstances be almost 100% efficient. If planned correctly, this could mean exceptional efficient powers supplies for our mobile devices. Unfortunately, the technology is fairly new and therefore expensive, I heard prices for a prototype transistor of around 20 bucks. A long way ahed.
@@Kyouske_42 thank you! Was just hoping that they would have mentioned it. Something like "but there is still hope..."
@@Kyouske_42 well... SiC have been on the market for years. Can make DC/DC 1/10 the size of silicon,. It they are just to expensive.
@@matsv201 I think you are mixing up SiC and GaN
@@Kyouske_42 I'm not
Ummmmm. That’s not why they call them “switching” power supplies. They’re called that because they switch on and off rapidly to create dc pulses that are then smoothed out by a capacitor(s) to output clean DC.
But who's really flying your plane?
What happened to that video? I watched it pretty soon after they uploaded it and i realised that there were no comments, and when I refreshed the page it was unavailable
What
I remember my train set transformer which converted 240V to 12V and was the size of a shoebox and had an audible hum.
The modern mobile phone charger has a power supply about the size of a mars bar. I was told the 240V goes through an oscillator circuit to say 20K Hz which means the transformer can be really small. My trainset transformer probably ran at 50Hz.
Now I understand why my brick adapter is so bulky.
It's because I can fry eggs on it.
As a side not, SMPSs themselves ARE extremely efficient (depending on the operating conditions). The bulk and power consumption mostly comes from first rectifying the mains power, then cleaning up the output of the switching regulator itself.
In regards to bulk, transformers are commonly used on the mains side to both isolate the device and bring down the cost and size of the rectifying components. Additionally, the more power required, the larger (both physically and in terms capacitance/inductance) inductors and capacitors you'll need to smooth out the pulsed output of the controller.. That's why your phone's charger (just look at the kindle's 5V adapter) can be so tiny while performance laptops have bricks that really earn the name.
In regards to inefficiency, as I mentioned, rectifying the signals is where most of this is lost. First of all, SMPSs are DC-DC converters, IE, they need a DC signal to function, so the AC signal needs to be rectified.To rectify an AC signal, you will typically use a bridge rectifier consisting of rectifier diodes. For the most part, they have extremely low on-state resistance, so that can mostly be ignored. However, they do have a threshold voltage which must be overcome before they begin conducting. P=IV, where P is power, I is current, and V is voltage drop across the device. Even if the material used to create the diode is a super conductor, that threshold voltage will remain, and the power consumption of each of the diodes will be directly proportional to the input current. The rectified sine wave then needs to be smoothed out via capacitors. The higher the voltage input, the lower the losses in the diodes, but the cost and size of the components needed to rectify, smooth, and convert that high input skyrocket as well. Then, the output of the switching controller driving the converter is essentially a pulse-width-modulated signal, so it switches between 0V and the input voltage at a certain rate. That is then connected to a capacitor, inductor, and dioede configured for the specific use case required for the application (do we need a higher output, lower output, or both?). The more power draw required, the larger the components will need to be.
Finally, as you mentioned in the video, there are RF concerns. While part of that has to do with the conversion process itself, there is also the issue that no matter how large the output inductor and capacitor that you use are, there will be some ripple in your output. I.E. it's not very clean power. For sensitive electronics, that's a problem. To get perfectly clean power, you'll need to go back to the linear converters you mentioned at the beginning. They typically consist of a zener diode and a resistor. When the voltage is above the reverse threshold of the zener diode, it will conduct to pull enough power to drop the voltage down to that threshold voltage, and the "missing" voltage is dropped across the resistor. To increase the efficiency, you will want to select a linear regulator that is as close as possible to the bottom of the ripple voltage without risking some other phenomena that I won't address here. That concludes my TED talk. Thank you all for coming.
You mean note
And DO NOT buy cheep Chinese power adaptors / phone chargers from ebay. Often made to very poor safety standards, and the mains reference voltage can leak across to the low voltage side.
Several teenagers killed in the last few yrs charging their phone while in the bath !. 1. You should never do that. But had it been a genuine apple adaptor etc that would not have happened.
I have opened a fake apple one and seen that secondary was touching primary!!!!!!! Usb and plug were literaly seperated trough a diode and the super thin isolation of the magnet wire!!!! Also the single diode (this is China did you expect full bridge rectifier?) and capacitor were arranged in a way that could create a voltage doubler which in the worst case you could have up to 680v in the usb!!!!!
Anyways ebay sells super damgerous stuff for instance i have seen a water heater that heats the water by passing mains through it!! MAINS!! LIVE AND NEUTRAL WERE CONNECTED INTO SOME METAL BARS AND THEN YOU SUBMERGED THIS INTO THE WATER!!! And there you go! You have live water with a very dangerous voltage referenced to ground! China is incredible!
I wouldn't be surprised if some brand name items are bad too, a lot are just relabelled, cheaply made items. Hopefully they're certified in the country they're sold in(when not imported directly from overseas by the customer), but a lot of products do feel 'iffy' now.
Or you could you know... not use it in the bath
Uhh using a charger in the bath seems like a Darwinism in the working, regardless of what brand the charger was from.
Should probably correct this as switching adapters are not called switching for that reason. They use an oscillator to buck (google Buck Converter) the voltage down from the rectified source.
They don't oscillate... They have a controller that controls output frequency and duty cycle. It switches a transistor on and off....
Also many PSUs don't use buck converters. They may use SEPTICS/Flybacks etc because they're isolated and get whatever output voltage you need.
@@ericcartmann Indeed. PWM is a special case of oscillation. As for the "PSU" bit, yes that is true too, but for most wall-warts they use a cheap-chip converter. Buck converters are just a good starting point to google to learn the black magic of DC-DC converters.
@@dnsmcbr104 lmao oscillation implies some kind of LC/RC filter or crystal. Oscillations are analog in nature.
Converters drive a square pulse to the gates of mosfets and bases of BJTs. This isn't an oscillation, it's a driven signal.
@@ericcartmann Oscillators to me imply anything that goes up/down in a controlled or predictable manner. Probably an incorrect definition in the generic space, but in my EE bubble, it gets me by.
In other news, transformers are big.
In other news, water..... wet.
They are not anymore
@@IamUzyf yes, they are. It's physics. It depends on the specific materials and uses you need. I don't know where you like but maybe if you look up in a electric post and see a big square box that's a transformer. It's big ain't it.
ShikiMX this video was about AC adapters which have high frequency SMALL transformers
@@Shikimorirorokun transformers in linear power supplies were big and very heavy. In modern SMPS designs, they have shrunk a lot because they work at much higher frequency nowadays, 20kHz or so.
What's the name of the case featured in the video at 3.39
InWin 805 Infinity
My power adapter gers so hot that it's radiating warmth could probably power another computer.
Each time I get the "you can check this video in here" (1:03) I get left out because I use my phone to see TH-cam. Could you put in the description all the quoted videos?
1:40 who hit this guy
Forgot to mention the reason they have not been shrinking much even for the small ones. It's safety regulations. You need certain levels of isolation to protect your device and you from being electrocuted with the raw mains voltage or a sudden surge such as a power bump. These safety requirements all require certain minimum distances to be respected depending on voltages, materials, etc but in the end they all add size. Also specific certificate parts have to be used on the mains side such as safety rated capacitors which are not cheap or small when compared regular ones. It's all about getting the AC voltage down safely to a extra low voltage safe level that can't electrocute us.
You prune,everyone knows that mains Electricity is always going to be dangerous no matter what the Voltage is
Was that linus's kid at 1:25 cause honestly that's something he'd do
well if you need 12 Volts DC from a 120 Volts AC, first you need a place to store that Voltage, second it needs to be small enough to not cook that component... so you start with a resistance or a transformer... (a electromagnet that powers a smaller copper wire coil) with than the next step is to make that current one way, you need a Diode because that can only flow power one way. those are weak just like Capacitors hence why the transformer is first. the Diode is next only letting half of the wave form in (+ or Plus), then you need an other Diode plugged (- or Minus) in reverse. both output plugged on a Capacitor. then you might need a resistor or some thing like that to get the Volts at the right number.
so in simple therms, transform to lower power, trim and sort (align) the Waveform to a line, amass the power, deliver at the proper output level. so you start with power that looks like this "WWWW" and then like this "wwww" then like this "----".
@@squishyu well i am not exactly an electrician so i am just guessing the bare minimum you would need to do... heck i still have a hard time accepting that the power is not pushed out from the plus... that is so backwards to make power based from what Electrons gets deducted from instead of from what Electrons comes out of.
Apple: I’ve never seen this man in my life
I heard, that we are slowly reaching the "limit of silicon" in computerchip performance. A video about why that is, or the future, more powerful technologies would be great. I'm really interested in how exactly a computer works, even on the smallest scale.
So, a video about that would be nice, but its probably too complicated for such a large audience. Anyway, you guys are great. Keep going.
So why don't we instead build in AC to DC converters inside of our houses and just have them live in the walls or the basement or something? Seems like a better idea.
It does sound good in theory, but in practicality it gets complicated very quickly. For instance, different electronics require different voltages. How would you be able to adjust the voltage according to the device you use? Also, there are so many different types of adapters and connectors that devices use, how would you be able to adapt for all those devices?
@@alexkalicharan8283 and easy explanation right there. On top of that. The average person doesnt know squat about electricity. It's much safer for the producer to supply what their products need vs leaving it up to the consumer to know better.
1:39
"Wong, you're invited to my wedding!"
"You can use those things as a murder weapon"
Hehe yes.... yes you can hehehe
1:00 There's A Bridge Wave Rectifier! Nice!
3:11 Hey look, that's the kind of laptop I have
0:32 - That looks like the PSU of my mini-desktop PC (HP Elite 8200).
Should have mentioned the ac/ac transformer block, which usually contributes a lot to weight and volume
"Ok so the ac/ac transformer is in, what else should we do?"
"Add a capacitor so there's no ac feedback"
"There's microamps of feedback now, but its probably fin-"
"Put this big one in"
"Ok but I dont thin-"
"Put two, I dont care about weight"
And that's how you get the old adapters that are just... massive.
He kindof did... The linear adapters also uses ac/ac.. other vice they don't work. Sadly there was a lot wrong in the video
1:07 linus: you can learn more aboout AC and DC
me: BACK IN BLACK!
Just use a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER
When he said AC DC. I was like........
I’m on a high way to hell!
same
Linus uses xbox 360 power adapters as murder weapons.
Edit. Wow 7 months later I forgot about this comment and didnt expect this many likes. Thanks. :]
Thanks for the tip! Sure will come in handy!
Amateur, real pros use ColecoVision Power Adapters
Standardization helps by letting you carry fewer proprietary power supplies. This has improved a lot in recent years. I pay a few $ extra for camera battery chargers than can run from a USB charging brick.
Yea but was that Xbox 360 huge industrial style power connector not kinda badass
I use that thing to power lights I trust it more than some of the cheapie power supplies they send you with those LED strips lol
0:53 The circuit diagram at 0:53 only makes the current non-negative, it doesn't actually flatten it out.
You know what else is HUGE?
1:40 This guy's bruise on his face
Wait... You just edited this... ACTIONS ARE NOTICED BY SKEPTICS
It used to say "poor guy what happened to his face"
AM I CREEPING YOU OUT YET
@@Zi7ar21 wuuut? What in the 😂😂😂
Actually only "poor guy" was the original comment.. without the "his face" part but still 😮
@@bogroman13 Mission accomplished
Teaching us about something they don't really know, classic LTT.
He missed the main point. AC wall electricity is dangerous because its ac and its high voltage. Phones are very abused, they get dropped and dropped in water(sometimes even salty water which is conductive). A failure in the power adapter can result in a overvolt of different components in the phone's/laptop board and damage to them. It might also exposed or short the live wires which is the most frightening to me
High voltage is not dangerous. High voltage mixed with high current is dangerous. Most water in general (other than distilled) is conductive due to the minerals and metals often in it. A failure of the power adapter will likely just destroy the charging circuit of the phone, nothing else.
Are you trying to make the argument that phone adapters are not abused?
@@Anton-cv2ti Phone adapters are abused but they are plastic. Normaly the internal fuse in the adapter will burn before a adapter gets that exposed that you risk touching the high voltage side.
A faulty phone with 230v and metal frame (has to be used due to antenna technology) can cause a hell of a problem and really not healthy, especially for someone with a heart problem
5:30 versatile? Not today
**Screams of earliness**
RYZE N' SHYNE NOTIF SQUAD
(Get it? Ryze 'n? That was in a LTT intro...)
Jacob Bingham Very Clever
3:38 what is the name of that case
Says “In Win” on the side
@@alexmena3485 is that the name?
Hello
Sarah Bingham hello
Hello
Hello
eyy bby
Hi me
This was first comment btw
"Switching power supply'" comes from the mode of the transistors in the power supply (wrong in the video). In older power supplies they use to work in "linear mode" (linear regulators? Sounds familiar :D ) In that mode we have realy steady voltages, low electric noise and lot of heat (correct in the video). Newer PSUs use switching transistors in combination with inductors (chokes like the one next to the GPU/CPU) i.e. they are just on or off. There is no middle point. That gives high eficiency, less heat to disapate and higher electric noise (No wonder that you can hear strange noises in your speakers. They are comming mostly from some PSUs (not in all cases but in most). Linus that time you messed it up. Ask Louis about what he thinks about the video :D
Most real (not cheap garbage) PSUs' uses transformers instead of chokes for insulating mains from the low voltage output
Just learned about this in science class
Then you learned wrong. Swithing power supplies have nothing to do with the ability to automatically switch from 220 to 110.
Hey! Can laptop vacuum coolers damage the battery or the AC adapter? My laptop's AC adapter got damaged and I had to replace it . This happened after 5 days of using the Cooler. I have an MSI GL63 with dual side vents and dual back vents.
Between the shrinking size of higher power adapters and the shrinking size of motherboards in laptops as more stuff gets integrated into fewer chips, many modern laptops have plenty of internal space to spare for an internal AC-DC supply. I suspect their main reason to still use external bricks is simply to delegate the liabilities and safety certifications for AC-powered equipment to a third-party supplier.
yup, i agree.
Also, you'd have to make sure the insulation inside the notebook is good enough. If you have voltages like 20v dc and below, it literally doesn't matter. However, if you have parts of the notebook running at 240AC, you'd have to make sure that that part is very well insulated, which isn't as easy inside a notebook.
For a desktop thats easy, just put the whole thing in a metal case and ground that thing, easy. Can't do that in a notebook.
@@jort93z It isn't really that difficult to isolate the PSU from the rest of a laptop, just need to mold a partition in the cover to keep it away from any conductive structural component. My Acer laptop from a couple of years ago is almost half empty space inside due to not having an optical drive, enough space to fit two or three of its AC 50W adapters.
The biggest problem would be the AC cable: modern laptops are too thin to fit an IEC C6 socket, a thinner lower-power standard would be necessary. May need to go UK-style fuse-in-plug to protect the thinner gauge wires and connectors from meltdown.
@@teardowndan5364 why IEC C6? if you indeed want to mold a compartment to keep it away from anything conductive, you don't need a ground lead.
@@jort93z While ground may not be absolutely necessary, what is most likely to fail in typical adapters is the separation between primary and secondary inside the transformer since smaller transformers put the windings closer together. If transformer insulation fails, I'd rather have 110-250V go to ground and blow a fuse than going to every piece of exposed metal on the laptop and all connected devices. Those connected devices, their connectors and cables should also stand a better chance of surviving with most of the fault current returning directly through the failing PSU's ground.
@@teardowndan5364 Well, you have the same problem on normal, external powersupplies. Your notebook isn't usually grounded. If your powerbrick fails with mains voltage on its output, your notebook will become live.
The idea is that you are confident enough that it is not gonna fail and you won't have to ground any equipment on the low side.
Now we just need DC outlets in our homes :p
You need to realise that would render normal AC Appliances such as Fridge Freezers,Microwaves,Toasters and Electric Kettles etc totally useless as appliances like the ones I have mentioned use normal AC Electricity.
@@stephensnell5707 I didn't say remove the AC outlets :P
i love how he says "gaming laptop" seriously
Why? You don't think a gaming laptop has its uses?
My rtx 2070 / desktop i9-9900 powered laptop wants to know your location.
What happened to the previous tech tips episode???
AC/DC
Thunderstruck!
When I saw this comment I couldn't help but to slightly chuckle.
Another reason why some devices do not have internal power supplies is that if the device plugs into the wall, it needs to be certified for safety before you an sell it. Certification costs money and it is cheaper to certify the external power supply once and sell multiple devices that can use it.
That being said, I dislike when a device with no batteries has an external power supply. I also prefer linear power supplies or at least power supplies with 50Hz transformers (the voltage regulator after the transformer can be switch-mode) because they are easier to repair than switching power supplies.
And cheap PC power supplies with Active PFC (and crappy high voltage caps) have a very annoying failure mode where the power supply blows up and trips the circuit breaker. Now you have to turn the circuit breaker back on to get your other devices working again.
The xbox360 Jasper isn't the original 360
The Trollinator
It’s nice to meet another “inator”
And
Yeah! The Non-jasper versions had larger PSUs.
The OG was the xenon.
@@haxorinator8219 thx
@@haxorinator8219 The falcon refresh had a smaller psu also, but Jasper was even smaller
I have no idea what the Jasper is I thought there was just three Xbox 360 the one that was white the one that was black and the one that was shaped like an Xbox One and yes I know the original 360 came in black and was called the elite but the black one I'm referring to is often referred to as the s
1:05 :O Linus resisted the urge to snap when pointing at the corner!
There is a good AC/DC video by ElectroBoom
The pulseway add before the video was epic !
Linus tryna learn us 'bout our AC/DC..psh who do you think we are, Canada?
Well clearly you're not the one to say that since you've got trouble forming one phrase without random mistakes
@@theconcernedcomrade Twas a joke, young lad. AC/DC = band. "Tryna learn us" = hick. Canada = Where he's from. Audience: Primarily not Canada.
@@itsJoshW Excuse me then, sarcasm was not detected in your first comment
@@theconcernedcomrade Plz learn 4Head
Technically speaking, power bricks are big because of big transformers and inductors inside. Their size are limited by transistors' switching frequency. Higher switching frequency can make use of smaller transformers. But there is a tradeoff between frequency and efficiency, using smaller transformer requires transistors to switch faster, but the transistor has switching loss as it transit from on state to off state. Higher frequency means higher switching loss, which pretty much explains the current limitation of silicon-based MOSFET. The solution is either use more efficient GaN MOSFET (at higher cost), or use different switching topology like ZVS regulator which eliminates switching loss once and for all at the cost of more complex design.
Linus forgot about GaN chargers like the anker Power port from ces which are much more smaller
Could you have just one main transformer at the point of entry (ie. your house or office mains inlet) and that supplies all points with DC power? Or is that too simple (or dangerous)?
220V? Is it 90's?! Almost all EU countries are on 230V.
Well, apparently there's a large portion of the world that still use 220V.
120v in merica. Wonder why they decided to go with 220v considering theyre based in the US as well.
@@iknowyounot88 Because it's used in almost every other country in the world
@@mikaluvuno6275 That's the right call too. US is just something else when it comes to standards 😂
Where was you when I needed this in science class 12 years ago...
Wow 1 minute! Im early. 360p Club!
But can you pee 360 no scope?
2:10 what's coming off of linus when he says problem?
switching refers to the use of pwm modulation to provide current to load, this video is innacurate
this is not meant to be a super accurate guide on how power supply's work only and explanation on why they are large
@@finley6691 I know it is not an in-depth explaination, but at least it should be accurate on what it says
Camilo José a switching psu doesn’t have to have pwm.
@@petrosrz8990 boi a switching mode power supply uses pwm to chop the output signal in order to regulate current, Im an engineering student son
@@camilo3626 this part of the video is not meant describe how each work only what each means to the user. Describing a switching power supply as being able to switch voltage is the easiest and clearest way to get across that they can work in more situations even if the switching part does not refer to this.
3:55
I think the wording you chose there is very poor to the point it is wrong. A power supply doesn't consume 1000 watts or more, it supplies, or converts, 1000 watts or more. A supply does not consume power, the components attached to it do.
Also, I believe your destinction between linear and switching power supplies wasn't very good. I don't feel you quite got the point across how a switching power supply differs from a linear one.
0:50 Why do we have dual outlets when power bricks always block them
So much wrong in this video. Can't you just ask somebody with some actual EE experience?
1:29 how do you find these kind of stock images