So, it's 6am and I'm up early getting ready for work when my youtube alerted me " Kiss Analog " uploaded a new video!! So I was presented with the option of taking my usual 15 minute shower before work or watching a 18 min Kiss video. My inner voice said fuck it i had shower yesterday, I'm watching the video haha! Glad I did, as it's Another awesome one! That Makerhawk looks like a very cool device indeed.Affordable too.I like the sense on the fan also where its not running full blast all of the time, thats a nice feature. Lol at some of the annotations too, I do the same thing forgetting if I bought something on ebay or amazon and i butcher the prices. I told a guy i bought one of my Agilent e3631a for like 300 something and he was like where the hell did you get one for only 300?? I checked my purchase history and had to inform him oopps its was actually 570. Funny thing is if someone were to ask me next week " hey what did you give for that power supply " I'd probably forget and still respond " Oh i think like 300 something" lol. Alright , love the video bro, time for me to get to work, i have just enough time to wash my face in the sink haha
abusiveben Still 😂, you are too funny!!! I hope you weren’t late for work;) but I’m glad you watched and commented! I probably wing it too often;). I’ll try to post another for you to watch after work - wait it’s Friday night - I don’t want to cause you a dilemma tonight - go out and have fun! ;)
@@KissAnalog Thank you sir, you are kind to have responded. I love playing with circuits but like my wife says, that won't pay the bills. Got to go back to the slave IT shops which I've been dreading. I told her prison would be better but she got mad.
Found this video after ordering one, and as of October 2021, it looks like the same exact unit you have. Can't wait to use it some more. My main goal was to test the capacity of 12v LiFePo batteries, and some 18v, and 40v Lithium Ion battery packs I have. I tried making something like this 5 years ago, but kids and other projects have caused me to evaluate time commitment of DIY vs. purchase for these kinds of things.
Thanks for the overview of this thing! I'm still a total noob, realized I need a dummy load a few days ago. Looked around a bit and have had my eye on this MakerHawk to take me further down the rabbit hole. I was going to get a no name 10A 150W for about $26, but 10A just barely meets my needs so it would probably be wise to get some head room. This unit is pretty much perfect for what I need, and I have a better feeling about MakerHawk than the $35 knockoffs. They probably work fine, but I'm a firm believer that you get what you pay for. Obviously this thing is still a cheap Chinese device, but it's the _slightly more expensive_ cheap Chinese device, and that has to count for something. Nice to see a positive review from someone such as yourself that actually knows a thing or two. I wasn't too sure about it before, now I feel totally secure ordering it 2-NITE!
Drew Kosonen I’ve been a bit surprised how good it actually is;) I have used it in a number of videos to show how well a low cost device works, but also because I just like using it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts - hope to hear more from you, and about your thoughts on this when you get a chance to use it.
Funny little unit. I think that the fan is a cheap CPU fan with thermal censor. I like that you find these specialty's that is payable for the rest of us:-)
I think you're right about the CPU cooler. I saw another video where a guy put a MASSIVE heatsink on the top, and another decent sized one on the bottom of this same unit. With those on it, he was able to push it all the way to 300W
Hi Eddie, that very same one you showed in this video is now in 2021, under various brand names, sold for $29. I used a similar one but with a 16x2 display and other user interface. Didn't like that one so much, didn't have continuous current control. Now I found another one, based on the $29 design, but the display is on a raised pcb. Looks nicer and makes it easier to detach when putting it in a box, connected with a flex cable. Specs are the same, price is €28. Amazing, isn't it? These things are very popular. I just ordered one and have to wait a couple of weeks now ;-)
My 180W test boards came with 9V/1A power units (wall-warts). IF you are going to use currents anywhere near the high end of the unit's specification, I recommend switching to a 12V/2A power unit so that it can maximize the RPM of the fan(s). Otherwise as far as I can tell the fan max RPM is limited to what 9V can supply which seems to be about 8.0V after a voltage drop in the fan control circuitry. The fans that came with my 180W boards were also lower RPM fans (230mA per fan at about 1700-1800RPM max as best I could tell) so I replaced them with higher quality and higher air-flow fans. At maximum RPM they are louder than the original fans...but of course the new fans are pushing a LOT more air through the heatsink. This results in the new fan(s) keeping the MOSFET considerably cooler than could the original fans and that is ALWAYS a good thing. WARNING! If you do use different fan(s) you have to make sure any fan control circuit can handle the mA required by the fan(s) which could be much higher than the original fan(s). You may have to make or buy a fan control voltage follower circuit that has the power-handling capacity for the fan(s) you use. Note: there are some fan control circuits that do this for you. The circuit is inserted and controlled by the existing 3-pin fan power jack on the board and the output(s) go to the fan plug(s). Or of course you may just directly connect the fan(s) to a suitable power 12VDC supply and run them at max RPM all the time. Note: I don't have any personal or financial interest in any of these devices.
After your response to a comment on another video about power resistors, I’ve been looking: my eyes are still watering from the prices! It hurts to build a stash. But you got to love these little devices for what they are. I have to say though, I do worry about the quality and safety of some of them given their origins (an A4 page of translated English instructions!?) - it would be good if you could do some testing in relation to that when you do a review. Seeing it in action is ok but it would be good to know if it is likely to have longevity issues or likely to burn the user :). On a different point altogether, that’s a nice set of patterns going on your scopes in the background. I can see you are keeping track of your heartbeat on your GWS (don’t want no collapsing on camera!) and nice picture on the Siglent. You should perhaps have a go at creating a Chua circuit (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chua%27s_circuit) before your next video :). Actually, that might be an interesting diversion into further using a scope. As ever, nice one Eddie.
Andrew Johnson Nice observation Andrew, I was wondering if someone would notice that;) That is a great point - I do need to test the safety points or the protection Circuits. I was planning on a follow up to cover how the other ports work and/or other functionality that I skipped over. I wanted to point out an option to trade for the cost of a bunch of discrete resistor loads, and the variability in load ranges to find particular operating parameters of your circuit. That is a fantastic idea about the chaotic circuit - I can already see some great implementations.
Thank You Kiss Analog! Ordered mine a few minuets ago! Now hope you did more videos on this tester?? Amazon $50 but worth it. Just looked and nothing more....So sad now...
I just picked one up off eBay and I'm not getting it to work. My knob adjustments will never turn the fan on or make the Voltage or Amperage move. Any ideas?
Does an cheapy electronic load add noise to the input ? If it doesn't change the output noise already a powersupply would have under load could be a cheap way to test power supplies
This is a fantastic question! On the job, we don't even use our expensive active loads when doing EMI testing. Not to say that they add a lot of noise at the input power where we are looking at EMI, but just to be safe;) We use resistor loads. I'll do a test to see what we see;) Thanks for this!
@5.50 The holes in the board are actually VIAs, they connect the bottom copper plane to the top copper plane. Using the bottom copper layer as an additional heat sink. The multiple VIAs allow for better transfer of eat from the top copper layer to the bottom copper layer.
Thanks Robert! Yes you are right on! Using via fields is a great way to tie planes together and also add more copper in the vias:) In this case, they are so large - and with the placement of the fan, I think they also are allowing airflow threw the board. Pretty cool idea;) I've placed cut outs and larger holes for this, but I like this technique!
@@KissAnalog Yes the holes would allow the air to flow to help cool the bottom plane. I too hadn't seen VIAs that large used before. It is an very good Idea. 2 birds 1 stone.
I still need to do a follow up especially now that I’ve used it in a number of videos;) But to answer your question, yes it does protect itself quite well;)
ive used these in parallel up to 60A, work great. Note factory wires suck, too much voltage drop/heat loss at the higher amperages. If i get the chance i might replace the pots with digital pots for an automated setup
Yes I think you are right. Thanks! I broke my fan with my fat fingers;) Now I need to epoxy it back on so I haven't been using it... I'll get that fixed as I need it;)
@@KissAnalog those are standard cpu/gpu fans which can be found on ebay and aliexpress. If you glue the fins back, it will vibrate a lot and destroy it's bearing
Thanks for asking - that's a great question. A remote sense will help to regulate at the load better to account for the cable loss to the load. Without one, it is even more important to use larger cable to reduce loss. The board might be able to be modified to add a remote, but that might need a video to explain;)
My task for the day was to watch as many videos on this load as I possibly could endure. Yours is the last one. One question comes to mind: What happens if you don't turn the coarse and fine knows all the way CCW before conducting a test? Have not seen anyone state the answer to this question.
@@KissAnalog would be very nice because my similar dummy load does not work correctly because of the voltage drop through the two cables the detected voltage is not correct. ua-cam.com/video/kDYn0xrDQkI/v-deo.html I bought this thing to make a capacity test of my LiIon batteries, but therefor the low-voltage cut-off have to work exact and not with differences of +/- 1V
Hello sir, we are a team of eng students working on our graduation project. I was wondering if you could help us by telling us if this load has a way to output the data readings into an excel sheet? and if it does at what rate does it do it ex: twice, once or 3 times a second? please let me know if you can help us!
Thanks and that is a great question!! Yes it can do that. It is made to show charge/discharge rates for batteries and provide the output to graph. I think it is at least once per second, but I'll have to check and get back to you;)
Hi !! Have you tried connecting a constant current source? like those used to feed LEDs, with mine I could not do it, only with resistive load. Sorry for errors in the translation, my language is Spanish.
@@KissAnalog, Thanks for the reply !! I tried it with a 12v 150w source and it worked perfect, also with many phone chargers, but when I tried to test the good condition of some 50w led drivers, it did not work.
I wasn't a fan of the flex in the thin PCB caused by the heatsink pressure. I backed off the tension to a minimum and have no issues with heat dissipation. I'd pay an extra couple $ for twice as thick.
The most interesting thing with these cheap dummy loads would be to test the accuracy. I tested a few and the current and voltage measurement is by far not as accurate as claimed (often 0.5% error). Its more like 3...5% error. It should have used 4 wire measurement instead of just 2. Some voltage is already lost on the connection load wires - so the error becomes bigger with high amperage. Of course you can cure this a bit with very strong cables.
also got one of those, identical picked up a few years back for testing high current 18650.. though at a way lower price, around half, but it was directly from China, without any return policy, like you get with amazon, so it makes sense with the higher price.. and yes the back micro-USB port you can run it from std 5v like a power bank. I have just put some 4mm banana sockets on those two big input terminals, as you really need to use those if you wanna go high amp. the interface is a pia with 1 button and you can easily find yourself in trouble where you put some current amp or wattage load max in play and annoying to get it adjusted back, as sometimes it will roll forward and sometimes backwards etc etc. but the good thing it aint locked, so you can go way higher than the rated 150watt... I have mine set at 300watt max, but obvious for brief tests, like checking voltage sack on lipo cells etc. and if a lipo cell is healthy.
I was going to buy one but I haven't I'm checking out reviews right now number five. Two hundred amp lithium cells to test don't know if they are the amps they say they are so would be good information to know!
Yes it is - kind of. I actually dropped something on the fan blade and broke it off the shaft. So, I just have to epoxy the fan back on and it will put out full power again;)
16:15 this fix resistance is very important . Trust me . You cannot test DC load in AC volt with out this fix resistance . Even Soo ... This fix resistance is important to test voltage higher than 50v in safe side . ( You have 8ohm and 8 ohm ) 200w . You can get 4 and 8 and 12 ohm 200w . Not necessarily for test load than a lower a voltage to get full stats of the original load
abed itani Thank you for asking - this helps the channel. From this link, which currently has a nice sale price, you will find other ohm values as well. amzn.to/39DC9iE
I guess you can make some modifications now on these to make it a 300w load. Don't think I would try 300w, but maybe 200 after doing the mod. After I figure it out I'll let you know.
I read an Amazon review comment that said this tester doesn't work for USB-C testing, and that they didn't know why it even has a USB-C port... Is that true??
@@KissAnalog I'm not sure if they meant it doesn't work at all with USB-C, or it just doesn't recognize USB-C PD or QC for higher voltages (i.e. 9v, 12v, 20v, etc)...
Daniel Brooker Ok, I wonder if it’s something that is selected in a menu or manually set? I’ll see if I can check out the other features it has while I’m at it. So far I’m really impressed;)
@@bluegizmo1983 Have just checked the USB TypeC socket... no power delivery protocols for TypeC so a PD load will not get any feedback and not send any power, but nominal (old style) 5v TypeC works like any other USB port on the board. So the typeC port on this load works fine, just not PD supported, though there is likely newer revision that has PD protocol and BT and all that jazz.(its quite old this load, got mine years back). Tried with my Porsche Book PD charger and my adjustable power bank with PD protocol, no dice.
I’m seeing current ripple on the output, at power up it’s flat but after 10 seconds I start to see ~1A short current pulses. I’m testing a 12v 100w Vicor. Ripple with equivalent resistor is flat. Anyone else seeing this?
Hi Bill, I was going to test this, but I damaged the fan accidentally and my glue is not holding (it is probably nylon). I do think at lower currents that I did see something like this. I meant to look into it but got side tracked;) Have you learned more on this since this post?
11:51 I hope you didn't crank it up to 80v because this DC to DC converter will send a high noise to the DC load and I got my transistor short it out for some unknown reason ( it work fine in 80v batterys with fuse for safe of short circuit )
It is power limited, so for higher voltages it can't take as much current. I wonder if you exceeded the power rating? It seems like the current limit works pretty nicely, but I have heard of others having trouble.
No I did not brake the W_V_A limit . But the mosfet that in the unit is irfp260N and the character in temperature more than 25''C is not what the PDF sheet say . And in by the way ( the more high voltage you put / the lower the current you have to apply / the power in W you have to make the power not reached the max power of the mosfet but you have to leave more and more free space for the power of the mosfet ) example : a mosfet is max 100v / 10a / 300w 300w in 25c In 100c the power is 70% is 210w Trust me in this one The more voltage you reach the more internal heat ( cannot be cool down immediately ) since the heat transfer is not fast enough to remove the heat source inside the mosfet . So the power is limited by a graph between the voltage and power by apposite the more voltage reach limit the lower power the silicone mosfet can handle .
abed itani That is a very good point - if the thermal time lag is slow that is bad news. I’ll have to check to see how this can be improved. There’s been enough interesting comments on this product - I think it’s time I do a follow up video!
Nice video about the Load. But PLEASE DO NOT USE IT FOR BATTERYTESTING or bigger Units without a Fuse in Series to the Load. For small DC/DC converters and maybe very small Battery it is okay, but remember the Construction and the Price ! Also it cannot Replace Resistors because of Switching fequency from DC/DC or other Power supplys. The ripple or noise can affect the Load operation. If this load fail while you testing a 18650 Batterypack with like 4S it can easy Burn down the whole setup or your House. 4S 18650 SonyVTC5 pack can deliver over 100A at Short circuit.
@@KissAnalog I Thank you for the great Video. I need a load myself and i did had the Idea to make my own. But Problems like Load regulation or oscillation stop this Project very shortly.. Now i did order a Load from a Company in china. The same Load is relabeld availabile here in Germany for about 430$ If i have the Time i will make a Video about it.
WARNING! POSSIBLE HEATSINK FAILURE AND AN EASY FIX It was hard to tell on your board, but the best image seemed to be at about 06.00... But at least on the board I got, the heatsink is held onto and against the board only by 4 little plastic pegs that hold the mounting ring to the board, and the tolerance/"fit" on these pegs on the board is such that the heatsink could WIGGLE around in all axes/directions, including VERTICALLY toward and away from the board. This means the thermal compound between the power MOSFET and the heatsink is under significant stress whenever you move the board. In addition, depending on what thermal compound they used, this design allows even a slight air gap to exist between the heatsink and the MOSFET thus accelerates the drying out and decomposition of the compound. This is a design flaw and can eventually cause the effectiveness of the thermal compound and/or heatsink to fail which in turn can cause the MOSFET to quickly overheat and fail at any time. So, the first thing I did, even before powering it on for the first time [Note1], was to replace those 4 clear plastic pins that hold the plastic ring to the board and secure it with machine screws and make sure the heatsink couldn't wobble around in any direction/axis. This can easily be done with non-conductive screws. I verified I could use metal machine screws on the 2 boards I got, but the board/PCB has to be designed and fabricated a certain way to allow one to do this, so using non-conductive screws is better and easier for people new to electronics and this kind of situation. --------------------------------------------------------- [Note1] one of the 2 boards arrived with 2 of the 4 CLEAR heatsink ring mounting pins LOOSE in the box. THE FASTENER DESIGN IS THAT BAD. Their fastening method had 100% failed. Two ADJACENT pins had already popped completely out of the board, leaving the heatsink to literally flop around on one edge of the mounting ring in the package during shipping. If the shipping had taken longer I believe ALL 4 fasteners would have eventually failed leaving the heatsink completely detached from the board and free to bounce around separately in the package. This failure immediately brought my attention to these mounting pins and the discovery of the design flaw...although the flaw is so significant it would have been obvious anyway, but perhaps not discovered right out of the box.
Thank you for this great information! It is a nice low cost Device. I think it’s worth the time to make it better. I did break my fan. I’m waiting to see if the epoxy takes care of it ;)
Try adjusting the cutoff voltage to 39V and tell me how much you like the product. We have to double click the bottom right button to raise the cutoff voltage .10 volts. Thats 780 clicks lol.
Hello, my Load Tester nothing happens, I turn the potentiometers and nothing. I've already changed Mosfet 2 times, nothing happens. Can you tell what might be happening?
Hi Leandro and Kiss Analog I have the same problem. I received the item, and it doesn't worked from start. No visible damage or magic smoke. I've started to build up a schematic to repair the load, but there are a lot intresting things for me. Can you do me a favour, and measure all the voltages on the two potentiomters pins? Because on mine all sits under 40 mV and the two ends of the resistor on same potential (shortened) (sch attached). The device measures the input voltage accurately and there aren't any shortcircuits on the board. imgur.com/a/DVbO4rj imgur.com/tya6n7v
@@flash5life With 13.9V input my display shows 12.8V @ 2.8A using the coarse pot, the legs on the pot left to right show 44mV 48mV 72mV. At the top right of the LCD is a transister this pot controls and the left pin goes to the resister beside it then to the processor. The transistor has 30mV on left pin at these settings. Hope this helps :)
from own experience a ">150V!"- overvoltage indication caused a freeze of the display, with just this message, on my 150W electronic load from Chinese production, which looks quite similar. I have not been able to create a RESET of this message with the one button on the board. The adjustable load itself still works, only the display constantly shows ">150V!" It's a mystery to me how the overvoltage message appeared, because I only tested USB Power-Bank's. Maybe a burst spark...no idea (?) In the case of the more frequent, and also understandable, operating case of the undervoltage message, this can be reset by applying a voltage above this setting value to the measuring input. With the key on the board, as far as I know, only the measuring value memory can be reset. The error or message memory is excluded from this. If someone has a TIP to reset this overvoltage message I would be very grateful ! - Greetings Michael/germany
I think I have seen this when there is no load. The voltage can climb up and get pretty high. It is strange that you can not reset it. I'll look into it.
8:00 This are not 3 transistors ( 1 big transistor 260N + 2 parallel Scotty diod 10amp per leg and you got 3 leg for the best big load and one for USB load )
Be careful about the unit what they say about power and voltage and current . They give you the max what it can handle in short time before the temperature reach 40c . Other wise you can get the transistor get shorten out
Reverse because I mistakenly put USB clip with alligator with wrong polarity . And nothing happened . Normally the mosfet get shorten if this was not in the board
The right side 5 mm black socket is an OUTPUT, not input. No one has covered how it works. Anyone has an idea? Edit: never mind, it's described here ua-cam.com/video/bx74sNFQvwc/v-deo.html
It works really well. I've added an XT-60 plug in parallel to the 5 mm, so I can propel some serious currents. Also relieved the power traces on the board with thick bypass wires. My version has the alu cooler sink, which gets to 50 °C at its base, but is cool on the fins. Not good! I will replace with heatpiped copper sink from cpu. Cheers 🙂
@@KissAnalog Hi Eddie, The white molex type connector is the sense lines for 4 wire measurement, on mine this only works in the "fun 2" setting. Press and hold the output button down and power up the board, then rotate the encoder to select "fun2" Adam
@@KissAnalog Hi Eddie, only had the 60watt version, since Wednesday this week, so I've not tested a battery. Mine reads low on the amps setting, it's out (set current of 1.25A shows 1.142A being drawn on my supply). The minimum current is 200mA due to the 10m Ohm shunt being read by the low resolution ADC of the microcontroller. Even though I'm using short heavy gauge wiring. So not perfect, haven't seen anyway to calibrate the unit yet. ATB Adam
You really need to review this video & watch it with the eyes of a viewer. You give the impression that you know absolutely nothing about the product. You made a series of errors (corrected on screen) & it reduced the value of the presentation.
Thanks for this feedback! I have tried to improve on that subject, but even recently I’ve missed a step. I actually meant to do a mor thorough demonstration of some of the features as a follow up, but it was physically damaged moving my lab around. I’ll probably replace it if I can’t get it repaired. I appreciate your time to provide feedback.
So, it's 6am and I'm up early getting ready for work when my youtube alerted me " Kiss Analog " uploaded a new video!! So I was presented with the option of taking my usual 15 minute shower before work or watching a 18 min Kiss video. My inner voice said fuck it i had shower yesterday, I'm watching the video haha! Glad I did, as it's Another awesome one! That Makerhawk looks like a very cool device indeed.Affordable too.I like the sense on the fan also where its not running full blast all of the time, thats a nice feature. Lol at some of the annotations too, I do the same thing forgetting if I bought something on ebay or amazon and i butcher the prices. I told a guy i bought one of my Agilent e3631a for like 300 something and he was like where the hell did you get one for only 300?? I checked my purchase history and had to inform him oopps its was actually 570. Funny thing is if someone were to ask me next week " hey what did you give for that power supply " I'd probably forget and still respond " Oh i think like 300 something" lol. Alright , love the video bro, time for me to get to work, i have just enough time to wash my face in the sink haha
abusiveben Still 😂, you are too funny!!! I hope you weren’t late for work;) but I’m glad you watched and commented! I probably wing it too often;). I’ll try to post another for you to watch after work - wait it’s Friday night - I don’t want to cause you a dilemma tonight - go out and have fun! ;)
I wish could be that regimented with my time. I can't complete one damn thing all day long but part of it is I have no future or desire to continue
Rich Patriotman Find one thing that you like or used to like - and do it. Playing with circuits maybe;) Peace
@@KissAnalog Thank you sir, you are kind to have responded. I love playing with circuits but like my wife says, that won't pay the bills. Got to go back to the slave IT shops which I've been dreading. I told her prison would be better but she got mad.
Found this video after ordering one, and as of October 2021, it looks like the same exact unit you have. Can't wait to use it some more. My main goal was to test the capacity of 12v LiFePo batteries, and some 18v, and 40v Lithium Ion battery packs I have. I tried making something like this 5 years ago, but kids and other projects have caused me to evaluate time commitment of DIY vs. purchase for these kinds of things.
Thanks for the feedback! Have you tried it? I'd think it would work great for that.
Thanks for the overview of this thing! I'm still a total noob, realized I need a dummy load a few days ago. Looked around a bit and have had my eye on this MakerHawk to take me further down the rabbit hole. I was going to get a no name 10A 150W for about $26, but 10A just barely meets my needs so it would probably be wise to get some head room. This unit is pretty much perfect for what I need, and I have a better feeling about MakerHawk than the $35 knockoffs. They probably work fine, but I'm a firm believer that you get what you pay for. Obviously this thing is still a cheap Chinese device, but it's the _slightly more expensive_ cheap Chinese device, and that has to count for something. Nice to see a positive review from someone such as yourself that actually knows a thing or two. I wasn't too sure about it before, now I feel totally secure ordering it 2-NITE!
Drew Kosonen I’ve been a bit surprised how good it actually is;) I have used it in a number of videos to show how well a low cost device works, but also because I just like using it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts - hope to hear more from you, and about your thoughts on this when you get a chance to use it.
This is perfect for testing 20 hour Ah capacity of 12 volt batteries for campers and boats, and for $45? Perfect!
Yes I agree! Thanks for your feedback!
That's awesome! Found something I didn't realise I'd need....
Andrey Miroshnikov LOL
Funny little unit. I think that the fan is a cheap CPU fan with thermal censor.
I like that you find these specialty's that is payable for the rest of us:-)
Thank you - so far I’m impressed with this electronic load. Seems to be smoother at the lower power than the Kunkin.
I think you're right about the CPU cooler. I saw another video where a guy put a MASSIVE heatsink on the top, and another decent sized one on the bottom of this same unit. With those on it, he was able to push it all the way to 300W
Drew Kosonen I’ll have to see what I can do to beef this up - I think this is such as great price it is worth taking a closer look.
Hi Eddie, that very same one you showed in this video is now in 2021, under various brand names, sold for $29. I used a similar one but with a 16x2 display and other user interface. Didn't like that one so much, didn't have continuous current control. Now I found another one, based on the $29 design, but the display is on a raised pcb. Looks nicer and makes it easier to detach when putting it in a box, connected with a flex cable. Specs are the same, price is €28. Amazing, isn't it? These things are very popular. I just ordered one and have to wait a couple of weeks now ;-)
Thanks for the great feedback! I also got a new one that is just an updated version I think. It also works great;)
Ordered two of them seen ya testing one had to watch 👍
Thanks for the feedback Randy!
I have some bigger batteries I like to test did you find away around the 12h time limit? I could not find a way to adjust it
My 180W test boards came with 9V/1A power units (wall-warts). IF you are going to use currents anywhere near the high end of the unit's specification, I recommend switching to a 12V/2A power unit so that it can maximize the RPM of the fan(s). Otherwise as far as I can tell the fan max RPM is limited to what 9V can supply which seems to be about 8.0V after a voltage drop in the fan control circuitry.
The fans that came with my 180W boards were also lower RPM fans (230mA per fan at about 1700-1800RPM max as best I could tell) so I replaced them with higher quality and higher air-flow fans. At maximum RPM they are louder than the original fans...but of course the new fans are pushing a LOT more air through the heatsink. This results in the new fan(s) keeping the MOSFET considerably cooler than could the original fans and that is ALWAYS a good thing.
WARNING! If you do use different fan(s) you have to make sure any fan control circuit can handle the mA required by the fan(s) which could be much higher than the original fan(s). You may have to make or buy a fan control voltage follower circuit that has the power-handling capacity for the fan(s) you use. Note: there are some fan control circuits that do this for you. The circuit is inserted and controlled by the existing 3-pin fan power jack on the board and the output(s) go to the fan plug(s). Or of course you may just directly connect the fan(s) to a suitable power 12VDC supply and run them at max RPM all the time.
Note: I don't have any personal or financial interest in any of these devices.
That is great advice and information exgenica! Thank you for sharing this!
After your response to a comment on another video about power resistors, I’ve been looking: my eyes are still watering from the prices! It hurts to build a stash. But you got to love these little devices for what they are. I have to say though, I do worry about the quality and safety of some of them given their origins (an A4 page of translated English instructions!?) - it would be good if you could do some testing in relation to that when you do a review. Seeing it in action is ok but it would be good to know if it is likely to have longevity issues or likely to burn the user :).
On a different point altogether, that’s a nice set of patterns going on your scopes in the background. I can see you are keeping track of your heartbeat on your GWS (don’t want no collapsing on camera!) and nice picture on the Siglent. You should perhaps have a go at creating a Chua circuit (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chua%27s_circuit) before your next video :). Actually, that might be an interesting diversion into further using a scope.
As ever, nice one Eddie.
Andrew Johnson Nice observation Andrew, I was wondering if someone would notice that;) That is a great point - I do need to test the safety points or the protection Circuits. I was planning on a follow up to cover how the other ports work and/or other functionality that I skipped over. I wanted to point out an option to trade for the cost of a bunch of discrete resistor loads, and the variability in load ranges to find particular operating parameters of your circuit.
That is a fantastic idea about the chaotic circuit - I can already see some great implementations.
Thank You Kiss Analog! Ordered mine a few minuets ago! Now hope you did more videos on this tester?? Amazon $50 but worth it. Just looked and nothing more....So sad now...
I’ll show it on a video soon - thank you!
I just picked one up off eBay and I'm not getting it to work. My knob adjustments will never turn the fan on or make the Voltage or Amperage move. Any ideas?
Sorry, just found this post. Have you had any more success?
Does an cheapy electronic load add noise to the input ? If it doesn't change the output noise already a powersupply would have under load could be a cheap way to test power supplies
This is a fantastic question! On the job, we don't even use our expensive active loads when doing EMI testing. Not to say that they add a lot of noise at the input power where we are looking at EMI, but just to be safe;) We use resistor loads. I'll do a test to see what we see;) Thanks for this!
Im trying to increase the time limit from 12 to 24 hours run time any idea how?
@5.50 The holes in the board are actually VIAs, they connect the bottom copper plane to the top copper plane. Using the bottom copper layer as an additional heat sink. The multiple VIAs allow for better transfer of eat from the top copper layer to the bottom copper layer.
Thanks Robert! Yes you are right on! Using via fields is a great way to tie planes together and also add more copper in the vias:) In this case, they are so large - and with the placement of the fan, I think they also are allowing airflow threw the board. Pretty cool idea;) I've placed cut outs and larger holes for this, but I like this technique!
@@KissAnalog Yes the holes would allow the air to flow to help cool the bottom plane. I too hadn't seen VIAs that large used before. It is an very good Idea. 2 birds 1 stone.
Just thought of another thing: does it have any overload protection on it? What happens - are we talking magic smoke if you exceed 150W?
Andrew Johnson Great question! I’ll do a quick followup video reporting the other functionality and a closer look at the circuit.
I still need to do a follow up especially now that I’ve used it in a number of videos;) But to answer your question, yes it does protect itself quite well;)
ive used these in parallel up to 60A, work great. Note factory wires suck, too much voltage drop/heat loss at the higher amperages. If i get the chance i might replace the pots with digital pots for an automated setup
Wow - that’s a great idea! Thanks for this great feedback - very helpful!
Did you try pressing the push button inside the rotary encoders? It probably has coarse/fine setting
Yes I think you are right. Thanks! I broke my fan with my fat fingers;) Now I need to epoxy it back on so I haven't been using it... I'll get that fixed as I need it;)
@@KissAnalog those are standard cpu/gpu fans which can be found on ebay and aliexpress. If you glue the fins back, it will vibrate a lot and destroy it's bearing
hi sir, this load hasn't got a seperate voltage sense input. is possible to determinate voltage sense pins on the board?
Thanks for asking - that's a great question. A remote sense will help to regulate at the load better to account for the cable loss to the load. Without one, it is even more important to use larger cable to reduce loss. The board might be able to be modified to add a remote, but that might need a video to explain;)
My task for the day was to watch as many videos on this load as I possibly could endure. Yours is the last one. One question comes to mind: What happens if you don't turn the coarse and fine knows all the way CCW before conducting a test? Have not seen anyone state the answer to this question.
LOL well I’m glad you watched mine:) I’ll have to try that but I think it still works. I’ll have to get back to you.
Is the low voltage alarm also a low voltage cut-off? Or, is it just an alert?
No it does cut off and save itself pretty well. I've meant to do a follow up review of this - and cover some of the other features.
@@KissAnalog would be very nice because my similar dummy load does not work correctly because of the voltage drop through the two cables the detected voltage is not correct. ua-cam.com/video/kDYn0xrDQkI/v-deo.html
I bought this thing to make a capacity test of my LiIon batteries, but therefor the low-voltage cut-off have to work exact and not with differences of +/- 1V
Im looking to buy this to test phone power adapters.
What do you think?
That should work well. Let us know ok?
@@KissAnalog Will do
Hello sir, we are a team of eng students working on our graduation project. I was wondering if you could help us by telling us if this load has a way to output the data readings into an excel sheet? and if it does at what rate does it do it ex: twice, once or 3 times a second?
please let me know if you can help us!
Thanks and that is a great question!! Yes it can do that. It is made to show charge/discharge rates for batteries and provide the output to graph. I think it is at least once per second, but I'll have to check and get back to you;)
You could build a variable power supply out of that. Not that I would want to. Pretty cool though!
Thanks - this is a nice load. I have a new one that I need to review;)
I used to have the same Plano tackle box when I went to DeVry.
LOL I actually taught at ITT for a short stint and they had a similar or maybe the same box as well:)
@@KissAnalog I guess it wasn't standard issue for the time but bought it for school anyway since I wanted to room for chips
Hi can these capacity tester can test ir? What internal resistance range it can read?
Great question! I think there is a way to use them for that. Have you tried?
Hi !! Have you tried connecting a constant current source? like those used to feed LEDs, with mine I could not do it, only with resistive load. Sorry for errors in the translation, my language is Spanish.
No, I haven't tried that yet. I need to do that! Thanks for the feedback! How have you liked yours?
@@KissAnalog, Thanks for the reply !! I tried it with a 12v 150w source and it worked perfect, also with many phone chargers, but when I tried to test the good condition of some 50w led drivers, it did not work.
Can you give me a part number and I'll see if I can figure that out?
@@KissAnalog Hello, I uploaded a video where I show the problem, it is in Spanish but I think that just seeing it is understood.
I'm a fan
Thanks - that’s awesome!
I wasn't a fan of the flex in the thin PCB caused by the heatsink pressure. I backed off the tension to a minimum and have no issues with heat dissipation. I'd pay an extra couple $ for twice as thick.
I completely agree with you! Thanks for the feedback Jonny,
The most interesting thing with these cheap dummy loads would be to test the accuracy. I tested a few and the current and voltage measurement is by far not as accurate as claimed (often 0.5% error). Its more like 3...5% error. It should have used 4 wire measurement instead of just 2. Some voltage is already lost on the connection load wires - so the error becomes bigger with high amperage. Of course you can cure this a bit with very strong cables.
Thanks for this feedback! I have a new version that I need to review and I’ll keep this in mind;)
also got one of those, identical picked up a few years back for testing high current 18650.. though at a way lower price, around half, but it was directly from China, without any return policy, like you get with amazon, so it makes sense with the higher price..
and yes the back micro-USB port you can run it from std 5v like a power bank.
I have just put some 4mm banana sockets on those two big input terminals, as you really need to use those if you wanna go high amp.
the interface is a pia with 1 button and you can easily find yourself in trouble where you put some current amp or wattage load max in play and annoying to get it adjusted back, as sometimes it will roll forward and sometimes backwards etc etc.
but the good thing it aint locked, so you can go way higher than the rated 150watt... I have mine set at 300watt max, but obvious for brief tests, like checking voltage sack on lipo cells etc. and if a lipo cell is healthy.
Thats great info - thank you! need to spend more time with this load.
I was going to buy one but I haven't I'm checking out reviews right now number five. Two hundred amp lithium cells to test don't know if they are the amps they say they are so would be good information to know!
Thank you for this feedback! I have another one that I’ll demonstrate very soon!
Hey Eddie is this DC load tester still working?
Yes it is - kind of. I actually dropped something on the fan blade and broke it off the shaft. So, I just have to epoxy the fan back on and it will put out full power again;)
@KissAnalog thanks for the reply Eddie!
16:15 this fix resistance is very important . Trust me . You cannot test DC load in AC volt with out this fix resistance . Even Soo ... This fix resistance is important to test voltage higher than 50v in safe side . ( You have 8ohm and 8 ohm ) 200w . You can get 4 and 8 and 12 ohm 200w . Not necessarily for test load than a lower a voltage to get full stats of the original load
Send me link about how I can buy this fix resistance . I need 2ohm / 4ohm / 8ohm ( or 4 PC's 4ohm )
abed itani Thank you for asking - this helps the channel. From this link, which currently has a nice sale price, you will find other ohm values as well. amzn.to/39DC9iE
I guess you can make some modifications now on these to make it a 300w load. Don't think I would try 300w, but maybe 200 after doing the mod. After I figure it out I'll let you know.
Thank you! I'd like to hear what you come up with. I do have another version to show as well;)
MERCIIIIIIIIIIIIII BEAUCOUPPP
Thank you!
I read an Amazon review comment that said this tester doesn't work for USB-C testing, and that they didn't know why it even has a USB-C port... Is that true??
Daniel, I’ll check that out. I haven’t tried that yet. That’s very interesting - thanks for the tip,
@@KissAnalog cool thanks
@@KissAnalog I'm not sure if they meant it doesn't work at all with USB-C, or it just doesn't recognize USB-C PD or QC for higher voltages (i.e. 9v, 12v, 20v, etc)...
Daniel Brooker Ok, I wonder if it’s something that is selected in a menu or manually set? I’ll see if I can check out the other features it has while I’m at it. So far I’m really impressed;)
@@bluegizmo1983 Have just checked the USB TypeC socket... no power delivery protocols for TypeC so a PD load will not get any feedback and not send any power, but nominal (old style) 5v TypeC works like any other USB port on the board.
So the typeC port on this load works fine, just not PD supported, though there is likely newer revision that has PD protocol and BT and all that jazz.(its quite old this load, got mine years back).
Tried with my Porsche Book PD charger and my adjustable power bank with PD protocol, no dice.
I’m seeing current ripple on the output, at power up it’s flat but after 10 seconds I start to see ~1A short current pulses. I’m testing a 12v 100w Vicor. Ripple with equivalent resistor is flat. Anyone else seeing this?
Hi Bill, I was going to test this, but I damaged the fan accidentally and my glue is not holding (it is probably nylon). I do think at lower currents that I did see something like this. I meant to look into it but got side tracked;) Have you learned more on this since this post?
Good explan
Thank you!
11:51 I hope you didn't crank it up to 80v because this DC to DC converter will send a high noise to the DC load and I got my transistor short it out for some unknown reason ( it work fine in 80v batterys with fuse for safe of short circuit )
It is power limited, so for higher voltages it can't take as much current. I wonder if you exceeded the power rating? It seems like the current limit works pretty nicely, but I have heard of others having trouble.
No I did not brake the W_V_A limit . But the mosfet that in the unit is irfp260N and the character in temperature more than 25''C is not what the PDF sheet say . And in by the way ( the more high voltage you put / the lower the current you have to apply / the power in W you have to make the power not reached the max power of the mosfet but you have to leave more and more free space for the power of the mosfet ) example : a mosfet is max 100v / 10a / 300w
300w in 25c
In 100c the power is 70% is 210w
Trust me in this one
The more voltage you reach the more internal heat ( cannot be cool down immediately ) since the heat transfer is not fast enough to remove the heat source inside the mosfet . So the power is limited by a graph between the voltage and power by apposite the more voltage reach limit the lower power the silicone mosfet can handle .
abed itani That is a very good point - if the thermal time lag is slow that is bad news. I’ll have to check to see how this can be improved. There’s been enough interesting comments on this product - I think it’s time I do a follow up video!
Nice video about the Load.
But PLEASE DO NOT USE IT FOR BATTERYTESTING or bigger Units without a Fuse in Series to the Load.
For small DC/DC converters and maybe very small Battery it is okay, but remember the Construction and the Price !
Also it cannot Replace Resistors because of Switching fequency from DC/DC or other Power supplys.
The ripple or noise can affect the Load operation.
If this load fail while you testing a 18650 Batterypack with like 4S it can easy Burn down the whole setup or your House.
4S 18650 SonyVTC5 pack can deliver over 100A at Short circuit.
Andy Privat Wow - that is such great advice! Thank you!!! These comments are so much help to others - and me;)
@@KissAnalog I Thank you for the great Video.
I need a load myself and i did had the Idea to make my own.
But Problems like Load regulation or oscillation stop this Project very shortly..
Now i did order a Load from a Company in china.
The same Load is relabeld availabile here in Germany for about 430$
If i have the Time i will make a Video about it.
+Andy Privat That video would be great! I have so many ideas - but not enough time;)
@@KissAnalog i know what you mean... This year i even had no time to get good ideas...
WARNING! POSSIBLE HEATSINK FAILURE AND AN EASY FIX
It was hard to tell on your board, but the best image seemed to be at about 06.00...
But at least on the board I got, the heatsink is held onto and against the board only by 4 little plastic pegs that hold the mounting ring to the board, and the tolerance/"fit" on these pegs on the board is such that the heatsink could WIGGLE around in all axes/directions, including VERTICALLY toward and away from the board.
This means the thermal compound between the power MOSFET and the heatsink is under significant stress whenever you move the board. In addition, depending on what thermal compound they used, this design allows even a slight air gap to exist between the heatsink and the MOSFET thus accelerates the drying out and decomposition of the compound.
This is a design flaw and can eventually cause the effectiveness of the thermal compound and/or heatsink to fail which in turn can cause the MOSFET to quickly overheat and fail at any time.
So, the first thing I did, even before powering it on for the first time [Note1], was to replace those 4 clear plastic pins that hold the plastic ring to the board and secure it with machine screws and make sure the heatsink couldn't wobble around in any direction/axis. This can easily be done with non-conductive screws.
I verified I could use metal machine screws on the 2 boards I got, but the board/PCB has to be designed and fabricated a certain way to allow one to do this, so using non-conductive screws is better and easier for people new to electronics and this kind of situation.
---------------------------------------------------------
[Note1] one of the 2 boards arrived with 2 of the 4 CLEAR heatsink ring mounting pins LOOSE in the box. THE FASTENER DESIGN IS THAT BAD. Their fastening method had 100% failed. Two ADJACENT pins had already popped completely out of the board, leaving the heatsink to literally flop around on one edge of the mounting ring in the package during shipping. If the shipping had taken longer I believe ALL 4 fasteners would have eventually failed leaving the heatsink completely detached from the board and free to bounce around separately in the package. This failure immediately brought my attention to these mounting pins and the discovery of the design flaw...although the flaw is so significant it would have been obvious anyway, but perhaps not discovered right out of the box.
Thank you for this great information! It is a nice low cost Device. I think it’s worth the time to make it better. I did break my fan. I’m waiting to see if the epoxy takes care of it ;)
👍👍👍TY
Thank you!!
Try adjusting the cutoff voltage to 39V and tell me how much you like the product. We have to double click the bottom right button to raise the cutoff voltage .10 volts. Thats 780 clicks lol.
Thanks for the feedback. But can’t you click to move the cursor over to adjust the digit that you want?
@@KissAnalog This Amazon question was answered - "After pressing, you can keep increasing by long pressing."
Hello, my Load Tester nothing happens, I turn the potentiometers and nothing.
I've already changed Mosfet 2 times, nothing happens.
Can you tell what might be happening?
Do you have an oscilloscope? You can check to see if the gate of the FET is getting a signal. I wonder if the input voltage regulator is working?
Hi Leandro and Kiss Analog
I have the same problem. I received the item, and it doesn't worked from start. No visible damage or magic smoke. I've started to build up a schematic to repair the load, but there are a lot intresting things for me. Can you do me a favour, and measure all the voltages on the two potentiomters pins? Because on mine all sits under 40 mV and the two ends of the resistor on same potential (shortened) (sch attached). The device measures the input voltage accurately and there aren't any shortcircuits on the board.
imgur.com/a/DVbO4rj
imgur.com/tya6n7v
Light Factory I’ll check this out soon. I’m still in New York on vacation so I’ll get to it when I get back home.
@@flash5life With 13.9V input my display shows 12.8V @ 2.8A using the coarse pot, the legs on the pot left to right show 44mV 48mV 72mV. At the top right of the LCD is a transister this pot controls and the left pin goes to the resister beside it then to the processor. The transistor has 30mV on left pin at these settings. Hope this helps :)
from own experience
a ">150V!"- overvoltage indication caused a freeze of the display, with just this message, on my 150W electronic load from Chinese production, which looks quite similar. I have not been able to create a RESET of this message with the one button on the board.
The adjustable load itself still works, only the display constantly shows ">150V!" It's a mystery to me how the overvoltage message appeared, because I only tested USB Power-Bank's. Maybe a burst spark...no idea (?)
In the case of the more frequent, and also understandable, operating case of the undervoltage message, this can be reset by applying a voltage above this setting value to the measuring input. With the key on the board, as far as I know, only the measuring value memory can be reset. The error or message memory is excluded from this.
If someone has a TIP to reset this overvoltage message I would be very grateful ! - Greetings Michael/germany
I think I have seen this when there is no load. The voltage can climb up and get pretty high. It is strange that you can not reset it. I'll look into it.
8:00 This are not 3 transistors ( 1 big transistor 260N + 2 parallel Scotty diod 10amp per leg and you got 3 leg for the best big load and one for USB load )
Thanks, I'll have to take a closer look, but what you say sounds about right. I need to test this again for another subscriber who has had trouble.
Be careful about the unit what they say about power and voltage and current . They give you the max what it can handle in short time before the temperature reach 40c . Other wise you can get the transistor get shorten out
abed itani Thank you - I’ll follow up with a new video on this.
6:54 this small diod for USB protection test
Is this for Over voltage or reverse voltage?
Reverse because I mistakenly put USB clip with alligator with wrong polarity . And nothing happened . Normally the mosfet get shorten if this was not in the board
abed itani Yes this is a common practice. Thank you for all your great feedback!! I appreciate you!
The right side 5 mm black socket is an OUTPUT, not input. No one has covered how it works.
Anyone has an idea?
Edit: never mind, it's described here ua-cam.com/video/bx74sNFQvwc/v-deo.html
Thank you! I do plan on demonstrating more functionality with this unit. I appreciate the link;)
It works really well. I've added an XT-60 plug in parallel to the 5 mm, so I can propel some serious currents. Also relieved the power traces on the board with thick bypass wires.
My version has the alu cooler sink, which gets to 50 °C at its base, but is cool on the fins. Not good! I will replace with heatpiped copper sink from cpu. Cheers 🙂
mine broke already twice
That’s terrible! Did the fan break or the load itself?
Hi Eddie,
Good video, check out Voltlog #119.
For more information on this type of device
ATB Adam
Adam L Thanks! I like that review.
@@KissAnalog
Hi Eddie,
The white molex type connector is the sense lines for 4 wire measurement, on mine this only works in the "fun 2" setting.
Press and hold the output button down and power up the board, then rotate the encoder to select "fun2"
Adam
Adam L Thanks Adam! Great tip! Has it worked well for you? Have you tried the batter test?
@@KissAnalog
Hi Eddie, only had the 60watt version, since Wednesday this week, so I've not tested a battery.
Mine reads low on the amps setting, it's out (set current of 1.25A shows 1.142A being drawn on my supply). The minimum current is 200mA due to the 10m Ohm shunt being read by the low resolution ADC of the microcontroller.
Even though I'm using short heavy gauge wiring. So not perfect, haven't seen anyway to calibrate the unit yet.
ATB Adam
Adam L I’ll check mine again. I did once but haven’t gotten around to doing a follow up video on this, but I need to...
$22 from AliExpress shipped. Not a brainier.
Alex M Wow - great price! Thanks for letting us know!
13:30 dude the top is voltage adjustment, it will try to drop the load to that voltage. its not slow or coarse lol.
Thank you!
Hahaahhaqhha I've never seen this video. It's a cheap cpu cooler, an Intel lga1150 socket cooler master knock off.
LOL Thanks Joey!
I added a reply to this did something happen?
You really need to review this video & watch it with the eyes of a viewer. You give the impression that you know absolutely nothing about the product. You made a series of errors (corrected on screen) & it reduced the value of the presentation.
Thanks for this feedback! I have tried to improve on that subject, but even recently I’ve missed a step. I actually meant to do a mor thorough demonstration of some of the features as a follow up, but it was physically damaged moving my lab around. I’ll probably replace it if I can’t get it repaired. I appreciate your time to provide feedback.