Design for life
Paul Horner, MD of Advance Product Services Ltd talks about how his experiences leading a power supply
repair house has enabled their engineering team to offer ultra reliable bespoke DC power supply designs and
how you can avoid some of the pi#alls in the design stage.
It’s interes'ng. Being involved with switch
mode power supply design for over 40
years, you learn what works and what
doesn’t. What once seemed like quite
complex theory becomes second nature
and you ins'nc'vely have a feel for what is
required to make a design work.
But working in the lab as a prototype is
one thing. Working faultlessly for the next
20 years is quite another.
It’s feedback that the design engineer
seldom has the opportunity to benefit
from. You rarely see the end applica'on,
let alone the condi'on of the components
a0er years of opera'on in an industrial
environment.
This is probably of li2le concern to the
glut of far eastern manufacturers with
products at throw-away prices. But there
are s'll plenty of applica'ons where long
term reliability and build quality are
paramount, and this remains a stronghold
of UK design and manufacturing. Lets face
it, if you are manufacturing in the UK and
you are not focusing on quality - you are
dead in the water.
Of course, there are a host of general
parameters that effect long term reliability
of a power supply. Fundamental circuit
design, component selec'on, mechanical
construc'on, assembly process, storage
and handling all play a big role. However
these tend to be well appreciated at the
design and manufacturing stages.
Looking at things from the service
return side gives the engineer an en'rely
new perspec've. It allows a unique
apprecia'on of what, in prac'ce causes
power supplies to fail in the field.
And it’s not always obvious.
Part 1—Electrolyc capacitors
The drying out of wet electroly'c
capacitors is perhaps one the most widely
recognised causes of age related failure,
and it is certainly prevalent. Modern
demands for ever decreasing can sizes
result in thinner dielectric materials and
less volume of electrolyte. Although the
loss of electrolyte is by some means the
natural wear out mechanism, it can be
slowed considerably by reducing the core
opera'ng temperature of the capacitor.
Loca'ng caps away from other high
dissipa'on components is one obvious
example, but the core temperature is
also very much influenced by the ripple
current flowing through the ESR
(equivalent series resistance), namely
the electrolyte. A typical 105°C rated
capacitor has a ripple current ra'ng in a
105°C ambient, giving a core
temperature of approx. 115°C. The
specified load life under these
condi'ons can be as low as 1,000 hours
(42days), although in prac'se most
caps will con'nue to operate for longer
than this, albeit with reduced
capacitance and or higher ESR.
Most prac'cal applica'ons do not
subject passive components to more
than 50°C, so it can be temp'ng to
increase the ripple current above the
rated maximum. This is not
recommended because the
temperature rise is propor'onal to the
square of the ripple current mul'plied
by the ESR. Because ESR increases with
'me, end of life failure will occur sooner
faster than for a cap opera'ng at 105°C
and maximum rated ripple current.
Vented caps at end of life failure
Output capacitors on small ‘flyback’
power supplies, opera'ng in the
discon'nuous current mode are
especially vulnerable to early failure due
to the large ripple currents inherent in
this topology, so they need specifying
carefully. By comparison, con'nuous
current flyback and ‘forward’ converters
have typically a 20% peak to peak
current ripple compared to the 100% of
the discon'nuous mode flyback
converter.
Conversely, small (approximately 6 x
12mm) electroly'c caps commonly used
in power supply control circuitry can
cause problems in high local ambient
temperatures, even when run at very
small ripple currents. These capacitors
are o0en used in conjunc'on with a high
resistance connected to a HT rail to
provide a start up supply to the control
circuit. Due to the very small amount of
electrolyte they contain, they can dry
out before any other component fails
and prevent the power supply star'ng at
turn on due to high impedance or
current leakage. O0en this can go
completely unno'ced un'l the first
mains blackout and subsequent restart
a2empt.
Careful electroly'c capacitor
selec'on is becoming increasingly
important as more and more far-eastern
manufactured components enter the
market and it is important to pay a good
deal of a2en'on to the detailed
specifica'on of such components.
CuEng costs by using inferior capacitors
is rarely money well saved when it
results in a drama'c reduc'on in service
life, poten'ally high warranty costs and
a blemished reputa'on.
Be2er cooling, larger capacitors or
solid electrolyte capacitors are
alterna've solu'ons. Niobium solid
electrolyte caps are a cheaper
alterna've to tantalum caps, which are
becoming more expensive as tantalum
reserves diminish.