Test Equipment Detailed

A power supply is not 'just' a power supply, there are some variables which can differ depending on which route there has been taken during the stage of concept and design. Yes, there are ATX specifications, but these are just rough guidelines, they tell you nothing about the PSU itself. And off course, there is always the difference in the nations electrical source, either being it 220V 50Hz or 110V 60Hz. Therefore you'd better carefully choose your testing equipment, these professional tools cost quite a lot and it would be a real bummer if you noticed afterwards that some tests could not be completed because none of your equipment supports it. The setup at CM Venlo comes close to €50.000.

Chroma 6500 series programmable AC source>
To start with, CoolerMaster made sure to have US and European standards covered, meaning they have both 220V and 110V AC sources available. Therefore they have chosen the Chroma 6500 series, a programmable Alternating Current (AC) power source. This is essentially a power source which can be programmed to have a output power anywhere between 0 and 300 Volt. There is the ability to alter the AC frequency and phase shift plus you have the option to choose between 30 pre-programmed waveforms, and if that isn’t enough you can always program your own waveform. There is a lot more then meets the eye, in the end I guess the optional graphical display is a great addition to this AC source.



Yokogawa WT210 digital power analyzer

The WT210 is a high-end digital power analyzer. It can correctly determine the power usage, current, voltage, frequency, power factor and many more with up to 0,1% accuracy. And with up to 26A we have enough headroom to go readout multiple sources at once, your house breakers probable won't even support that much. The WT210 is an excellent way to have an exact readout of how much current the whole setup is drawing, power supply inclusive.

Chroma DC programmable loads

In order to properly stress the to be tested power supply's Cooler Master bought 3 Chroma 6330 series programmable direct current (DC) loads. 2 types: 63303 and 63306, where the last number stands for the maximum power it can load, i.e. 63303 = 300 Watt. These DC loads come with a fast responding microprocessor regulating the load; on front you have an easy turn-knob which allows precise adjusting. The inside electronics allow for a readout of the current drawn and also shows you the live voltage. The load is left floating and the device is also equipped with OCP, OVP, OTP and OPP protection circuitry: shortage will not damage any inside electronics. Better: the Chroma 6330 comes with a pre-programmed short circuit test button on front! Besides that you have the ability to use multiple units in parallel, you can even have them working together synchronously.



Tektronix DPO3000 Digital Scope

Tektronix is a well know brand in 'scope-land', their DPO3000 series have a bandwidth support up to 500MHz 4 channels. It has all the basic measuring options, next to that there is triggering supported for analysis of I2C, CAN, RS-232 and many more. The scope has a plug-and-play computer interface and comes with front and rear USB ports(for mass storage devices) as well as a LAN port. On front you'll find a 800 x 480 high resolution (WVGA) color display, the bigger the better right... More info can be found here



Flukes, thermal probes, handscopes...

For single line analysis a Fluke 88845A hand scope is present. This device is not exactly a normal multi-meter; it's very high precision and has frequency and wave analysis options. Not comparable with the Tektronix DPO3000 off course but very complete in its own way. And it doesn't stop there; we also found thermal probes attached to the inlet and outlet of Cooler Master Test subject. Both these probes were connected to the Center digital thermometer which comes with a computer interface with software included. Results can be logged and are being directly visualized in graphs.