Stress Testing a Cheap DC-DC Converter

Line regulation & load regulation tests with an electronic load Register for Keysight University Live & See today's winners here ► https://bit.ly/KULive2 ◄ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/KLabs_sub

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00:00 Cheap Amazon DC-DC converter test 00:17 Testing line regulation of a DC-DC converter 01:07 Testing DC-DC converter load regulation and recovery time 01:52 How well did the cheap DC-DC converter perform?

We’re going to test this cheap Amazon converter and see if it actually meets its rated spec. We’ll test line regulation and a load regulation which are essential DC to DC converter tests – You have to know how your converters holdup under non-ideal conditions to make sure your designs work. Let’s start with line regulation. A line regulation test measures the change in output voltage while decreasing the line voltage, or the input voltage. This device should convert an input of 11-24V into a stable 5V output. We’re going to test it and see how well it holds up! Our power supply provides the input power, and this electronic load will draw a constant current from the output. We can see on our load that the 5 V output from the USB port barely changes while the line voltage ranges from 24 V to 16 V. However, if the line voltage drops to 12 V, the converter can no longer regulate the output voltage, and it starts to drop. It was spec'd at 12 V minimum, but It looks like they might have exaggerated the ratings a little bit. Line regulation is an easy, but important te ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7dWAC6wok