Watch our factory tour playlist here: kzfaq.info/sun/PLsuVSmND84QuVMZuk2HGUtCSYXR7nmC5a How Power Supplies Are Made: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jbKEfrWL3b7FZH0.html Learn how computer cases and parts are anodized: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j556epmDuLvbdXU.html

OMG, I loved this. And it's amazing that we can get good power supplies for under $100 with this much R&D and testing that goes into the development. Steve, this series of factory tours you guys have done over the past couple of years has been completely eye-opening, and a tremendous pleasure to watch and from which to learn! You guys are the best of the best.

10:22 OMG spring clip to keep the laptop display in one piece. I'm pretty sure there is a lose connection in the LCD and the clips is there so the display don't go crazy. #XPforever

5:00 "Uh, hey! Oh.. you're filming? K bye"

Tape is actually very important for safety in switch mode power supplies, which is why it is tested so closely. The primary side of a SMPS typically operates at line voltages (up to hundreds of volts). The secondary side is hooked up to your device. It is very important that the primary side is isolated from the secondary side properly. Without proper isolation, you could damage your device, cause a fire, or get a nasty shock. The primary and secondary windings are separated by the insulation on the wires, plus specific tape. The number of layers of tape and the specifications of the tape are standardized by UL and other testing laboratories. Tape is used so that an insulation fault in the windings (such as a manufacturing defect, or damage caused by a surge) doesn't result in an unsafe situation. This is why you should always use power supplies that have been tested by a recognized independent laboratory, such as UL. Proper design really matters here.

More informative than the Science Channel's "How It's Made" for sure.

Thank you Gamers Nexus for these in depth videos about industrial side of things. Its eye opening and tears down the "blackbox" curtain that brands have between customers and manufacturers.

thanks for this upload, it gives me a sense of gratitude for the components I have knowing all the work and QA that goes into making them.

When you mentioned the Chroma machines, I was like, "Alright! RGB testing!"

12:41 "Trust, but verify"

It's kinda weird to see the equipment I used frequently everyday at work in this video. Work in RnD for power supply projects and frequently used those Chroma AC Source and Programmable Load. Well, at least before human malware comes and whole country goes into a semi lock-down. Well, at least I still work at home. i just prefer tinkering with instrument over staring PyCharm for 8 hours.

as a manufacturing/quality engineer, I appreciate this video. These are computer parts, with years of RD. Imagine the RD for a vehicle.

Fascinating. I could probably spend a whole week just in that room, talking to the engineers and looking at stuff. I'm so glad you make these tours, it's a real joy to get insight into the actual manufacturing & production of things.

5:00 LMAO @ the dude with the game going in the background popping his head out and going straight back in. Lol

I'm really happy that I stumbled across this channel and I've watched the whole playlist of factory tours in a day. Keep em coming, I'm obsessed!

Meanwhile at the bargain basement PSU factory the entire R&D department consists of one guy with a multimeter and a toaster oven.

So PSU manufacturers get rid of coil whine by simple measures like gluing coils. Then why GPU manufacturers completely ignore it?

These factory tours makes you value you hardware even more

Loved this! I really like the impressive engineering and testing that goes into a PSU development cycle.

I work in DVT for a PSU manufacturer, so all this looks so familiar! its cool to see people taking an interest in it. Thanks your videos are the best!

I think this is my favorite video so far in your factory visits series!

Metrology and Calibration are an ENORMOUS part of certifications for accredited testing - and if the numbers matter, then collecting them the right way and constantly checking your equipment is worth every cent.

WOW!! Brings back memories from my years at Peavy Electronics where we made amps, mixers, and other units for the musician industry. We had a lot of these tests in place in order to meet UL and the Canadian equivalent validations. After all, all our electronics had a power supply section built in. Good video!

i love these factory tours! i found the playlist! AMAZING!

Really educational! Give you a new appreciation for all the work that goes into these.

Awesome video, kind of insane the work ethic and attention to detail they have in this place. At the same time, drives me crazy some of the massive user-experience oversights you get on some products, such as annoying fan curves that could easily be optimized.

Yay! great content.Hope you'll do more PSU testing in the future as you once announced.

Yay! More factory tours!

Amazing and informative content as always, GN.

Great work! Thank you for making this video!

Working for a Transformer Company for the Last 40 years it's not really surprising how Familiar all the test equipment and Procedures are! Considering that at the Heart of any really Good Quality Power Supply is a Transformer! Love these Factory Tours! Great Work Guys!!

It is this content along with your stringent testing standards that make your channel a cut above the rest. Thank you

Oh, thank you - have been waiting for videos on PSU's! Great to see. You also had some teasers on videos on PSU-testing yourselves? You'd bought equipment and all. Any update on when we can see the results? Or is there complications?

Do you guys have any plans to do PSU reviews in the not so distant future? I miss the thorough PSU review HardOCP used to do (and the absolute domination by Seasonic on all categories).

Really opens the eyes what happens behind the scene with these tours and information :)

pretty cool lots more work than I anticipated

5:50 yep done that at a previous job on Contactors, Switches, Relays etc. A lot of this equipment looks very familiar.

That laptop shown at 0:55, absolutely legendary

This is great! I bought an sf600 platinum from corsair and now I can't stop thinking about how many tests it passed and how much human time was spent to make a good product.

There really is no other channel like GN. The amazing look into upstream process for things we use every day; but that doesn't discriminate information on a 3rd grade level like we're a bunch of hammer swinging apes. Fantastic!

Both of the recent PSU videos are so cool

Loved it, Making my stay home not so boring

Yay Steve, i love Corsair and their PSUs but i had an issue with 2 AX1000i PSUs that were causing a TDP trip and turn off randomly, turned out to be some switch inside the PSU, a high level engineer at Corsair spent a lot of time on the phone with me troubleshooting and really helped drill down and support their product.

my grandfather would have been impressed with that lab. He graduated M.I.T. / electrical engineering in 1922. Senior paper was on "The design and construction of a device for testing automobile headlights and other light projecting units"

Great video. Thanks.

As some one that is an electronics hobbyist these factory tours are nice to watch as it shows how much work goes into even the most basic of components most people don't think about like PSU's. I'm glad to see people that are not aware of the kind of work involved in even a PSU realizing how much engineering a design time goes into the things that they use every day and don't have to think about. And yeah component selection is one of the most crucial parts of PSU design stages as the difference between going with one smoothing cap on the DC output to another can effect everything from the ripple current seen to the maximum wattage the design can handle with minor tweaks.

Amazing video

Very interesting. Thanks.

This was super cool

Looking back at this gem after today's video

0:52 This is what peak engineering looks like.

I wired together a small audio project involving a mic and learned how noisy power is from the socket and a wart. Always been curious what it takes to make a truly clean power supply. Very glad I’m not the only one with weirdly specific interests...

wow, that is quite impressive!

This was awsome

0:35 Floppy drive - nice !

I just got a Seasonic Focus 1000W PSU, and I was amazed how small it was, especially compared to my EVGA Supernova P2 1000W thats in my server.

Nerdgasm. Great video!

I'd love to wander in and grab a few of the obsolete pieces of test equipment for my own workbench. Even if it's out of calibration, it's good enough for hobby use!

WOW all that engineering and on razor slim margins. very cool

Very awesome

Good ol' xp

Thanks!

I hope the individuals wiring up the thermocouples are paid well. Painstaking and so critical to final quality.

Consider submitting your content to curiosity stream and make it a series XD.

Great video overall. I can attest to the immense amount of analysis necessary to build a quality power supply. We don't design supplies like this, but our products do have flyback topology designs to provide isolation and power conversion. I think most PC power supplies are flyback topologies. You don't just build a power supply once. You attempt to optimize your design in simulation, but once it is built there is still a large amount of testing and tweaking to do. I am surprised they manually twist the thermocouple leads together. We have a really slick thermocouple welder that welds the two tiny wires together. They are tiny by design to prevent error from the wire itself conducting heat away. We use fast setting CA glue to attach the beads to the top of components. We make industrial electronics so the operating range of our produces is -40 to 70° C and we routinely test 10 degrees beyond the extremes. We have done HALT testing up to 130 to 140° C ambient. Also somewhat surprised to see the thermocouple terminated in a large screw terminal block. Hopefully they are accurately monitoring the temperature of the reference junction, though I don't see how that one would be isothermal. Usually you would put a special thermocouple connector on the end of the wires that is made out of the same material. This would connect to the same type of connector and then a length of thermocouple wire that leads inside the instrument to a isothermal block where the reference junction would be. The temperature of this reference junction is measured and then the voltage error due to the Seebeck effect at the reference junction can be corrected for. At the end of the day power supplies are analog electronics and you don't just throw one together. Every idoit can count to one, but it takes lots of math and analysis to be good at analog electronics. Ask Bob Widlar.

Very interesting and informative. Hopefully there will be more appreciation of the technology by the community as a result of your efforts. I've always sworn by buying a high quality PSU as a result of seeing others kill components and general system instability caused by poor quality power supplies. Don't be brand loyal, buy quality components and build quality with a long warranty. My Seasonic has a 12 year warranty, shows confidence in their product. I bought a Snow edition Titanium on sale for £135. It's hidden in a PC011D so the colour isn't an issue. A good buy is a good buy 😉

I really wish there was some company in america or europe making computer components like power supplies and cases and things

Very interesting

I've worked in labs like these. Good times.

0:55 was the laptop screen held together with paper clips??

very interesting

In the words of Spock....Fascinating.

I feel really nit picky, since this video is overall very good and informative, but, I noticed a couple of details that could be worth taking into consideration. "These racks also include oscilloscopes, thermocouples and waverunner or wavesurfer brand devices for loging and analyzing component performance." 8:17 Is a statement that risks being misleading. It's technically not wrong to phrase things in this fashion. But why highlight the two product series? Both Waverunner and Wavesurfer are Lecroy oscilloscopes, and in essence are the same as the Tektronics oscilloscope that the quote started at. (Ie, the statement can be summed up as "these racks include oscilloscopes, thermocouples, and Lecroy oscilloscopes or other Lecroy oscilloscopes for logging and analyzing component performance." a somewhat redundant statement.) Also, pointing out the scope product name for the inrush testing is a bit overkill, since almost any scope on the market could do this test fairly sufficiently. So it is an unneeded detail and only wastes time in the video. (Though, the way they use the scope in that scene would require them to use an isolation transformer for driving the powersupply, otherwise the scope would suffer severe damage. (this is a trap for many beginners in the electronics world.) This is frankly a more important detail than the brand/product name of the scope being used.) In the world of test equipment, the main thing that actually matters is product specifications. The brand/series/model starts becoming important when expanding an existing setup. Since there is few communication standards for test equipment, and rarely even standards for the interfaces to start with. (in short, test equipment can have frankly arcane interfaces, even if one has used multiple other arcane interfaces on other equipment... So reading user manuals is not unheard off.) So an R&D lab, manufacturing line or test lab can tend to use specific equipment for a long slew of reasons. But primarily it is down to specifications, price, interfacing and unit size, sometimes also other details. But practically speaking, almost any piece of test gear from one manufacturer can be replaced by something similar from another. There is few test gear manufacturers that have their own corner of the market. Ie, it is much more informative to state the specifications required for doing a certain task, instead of sating what specific tool were used for the task. Since a test/R&D lab can at times use totally overkill tools for a task, since each piece of test gear costs money to buy, store, and learn how to use. Not to mention recurring calibration costs for ensuring that it is in spec. So most labs tends to just use what they already have on hand instead. 99% of the time a scope is a scope, a load is a load, and a multimeter is a multimeter. As long as the test gear has sufficient specs for the task, then it can be used. (obviously, a 300 watt load isn't sufficient for performing a 400 watt load test. But it is on the other hand sufficient for everything under 300 watts. (or at least down to its minimum resolution/range. (ie, it might struggle to load something with only 1mW.))) These last to paragraphs kinda applies to all your factory tours to be fair. (at least you aren't stating the manufacturer/series/model names of the robotic arms used in the production lines, or the conveyor belts, screw drivers, etc... But for electronics test equipment you are frankly on that level.) Then we have the acrylic test chamber where you say, "these use light bulbs in the bottom to heat up the chamber to about 1500 watts." is frankly an odd statement. Would be far more logical to say, "these use light bulbs in the bottom providing about 1500 watts to heat up the chamber." this is really a nit pick, but Steve, this is your field. (or are you just testing your audience here?)

Very interesting... I wonder what the Seasonic R&D labs are like... pretty sure Seasonic is not making Cooler Master PSU's right now.

The trust no one thing is definitely a liability thing and is also engineers gotta protect the public, the heroes of industry

I've done the thermocouple attachment work on industrial Helium cryocoolers and can empathize with the technicians. It's miserable but necessary work.

Love PSU's

Hi, love your channel. Thinking of upgrading my old AMD HD series videocard, left from previous setup, to RX580 and don't know if PSU Thermaltake Litepower 450W (LTP-0450P-2) would keep up with that? (PC: Ryzen 5 2600x, Asus B450 motherboard, 2x8GB of RAM, NVME SSD, + 2 Spinpoint F3 HDD drives, 5 coolers) The thing is, would rather not change PSU if not needed. Already had tested power consumtion with existing video card HD 6770 (rated TDP 108W). Runing Cinebench R20 with MSI Kombustor and from the wall system draws 303W max. And kinda don't want to go with less power hungry Nvidia, just because have monitor that supports only FreeSync.

I had an EVGA PSU die just recently so I will love to see this. Need an electrician in my household..

About the load test equipment. Does it simulate a set constant load, because most computer loads would be high frequency impulse loads from the many DC-DC fast switching? It's important because the impulses are "smoothed" by the filter capacitors. And you know, the more they work, the hotter they get and faster they age.

This is why I sometimes don't trust some PSU reviews at times saying a PSU is bad (yes, I'm talking about LTT PSU Tier List and those who interpret it incorrectly). These stuff go through a lot of quality testing, especially those PSUs that seem high quality or came from reputable companies. Just because one or few reviews say it had problems or defects in their testing doesn't mean all units are bad. Of course, when it comes to non-rated PSUs, I wouldn't be surprised that it's bad and a fire waiting to happen.

I love seeing a lab full of fancy toys...um, I mean, expensive test equipment :D

Coil whine can come from ceramic capacitors as well. Although it's technically a transducer effect.

damn from the thumbnail I thought you would be loading some power supplies to failure to check their real power limits. It would be cool to see that video

Steve you should really win some sort of KZfaq award for this shit. Seriously man ur a fucking innovator.

很棒，加油。

which one should i use

These ASUS X50 Series laptops turned out pretty tough. 👌😁 Not to mention what a great value deal they were, bundled with a bag and a mouse (rebranded Logitech)!

You made me drool on the idea of subsitute toilet paper.

I wonder if Gigabyte will allow you to tour their engineering facility.

12:44 If I only knew that before blindly trusting Datasheet values in my undergraduate project.

Here is Aussie we had few weeks with 40c ambient and 100% humidity

What happened to the Pro OC'er interview video? Did I miss it?

0:47 basically the ultimate equipment.

Gamer Nexus is the Linus Tech Tips for true adults

I was worried about the XP boxes until you said they weren't online.

This is extremely entertaining even though this is way out of my realm of knowledge.

Please can you do a video on where you attempt to permanently damage a video card with high temperatures and maybe high voltages as well. The goal, to learn what temperatures will actually potentially damage a video card. try it on card that is relatively modern IT WILL BE FUNNNN

0:57 The good old XP

you should test KCAS