terastation pro internal power supply replacement.

I am apparently the first person buying a Buffalotech Terastation Pro in the USA and trying to use it in Europe. I failed to notice that it only supports 120V instead of 240V and a lot of smoke later it dawned upon me I blew the power supply.

So now I have a brand new and completely uselessTerastation Pro. The power supply is not a standard ATX type of power supply, but a smallish PCB board with one connection (2 wires) to the power cable plug and another (10 wires) to the mainboard. Photo's can be provided on request.

My question now (after you finished laughing) is wether anyone knows what type of power supply the Terastation uses and where I could buy a replacement that should work in the EU.

Don't tell me to contact Buffalotech on this. I am .... and they are not really able to help me up to now.

Thank you in advance,

Aragorn.

Reply to
aragorn
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That sounds like a custom-job. Likelt the only reasonable way is to adapt some other PSU. You could for example try with a mini-ITX regulator board and external 12V PSU, if that provides enough power. The other concern is that you may have damaged the mainboard as well.

Arno

Reply to
Arno Wagner

If they don't make a version for Europe, you won't be able to buy a replacement that works either. You should buy an equivalent device that accepts 240V input (entire retail unit) or buy same thing and also a 120V-240V adapter (transformer). However, it's not a "cheap" device, it's value might make it worthwhile to take to a technician, computer repair shop competent in electroics repairs rather than just software and (swap this dead part) simple stuff. A decent tech should have the ability to hook it up to a bench supply and determine if the rest of it works and at least provide some insight on the voltages and rough amperage needed... which even if that information, the cable pinout, and whether the unit works, cost $100, it could be worthwhile. We can try to assist remotely but sometimes there's no substitute for having the piece of gear to poke around in it.

Can you take REALLY really good pictures? They'd need be posted elsewhere and linked here. It might be possible to repair and (maybe) adapt the PSU to 240V power, but we don't even know if the rest of the unit is intact. Does the power board have any silkscreening or other indications of what these 10 leads are? I would presume a fair number, possibly about half of them are grounds, but that leaves the rest.

It looks like that unit has a single board computer and likely 3.3V, 5V, 12V (at least) going to it. It could use pairs of wires for one or more of the latter voltages, if you had a multimeter you could check continuity at the mainboard connector, or even pull that board out and examine it. The overall design of the PSU board, as well as good pictures of the top and bottom might also provide hints and what you're dealing with.

The problem may not be finding a supply for the necessary voltage, but rather in the form-factor (possible proprietary) that will fit in the box. Some 3rd party supply that is electrically compatible may need the wires/connector from the original soldered on, but if you can accept an external supply that might be easier to source. In short, you're more likely to find the answer by reverse engineering this than from a 3rd party, though you might still be able to get more data on the PSU from Buffalotech.

Reply to
kony

Don't give up hope yet. There are dozens of companies around the world which make switching PS modules and one of them is sure to have what you need or something adaptable. Companies like Buffalo don't make their own PSs and will buy off-the-shelf units rather than buying custom if they can get away with it. Your first job is to find out exactly what the output was from the old unit. It was likely only +5V and +12V but you'll need to make sure and then determine what the current requirements were for each. This is a _very_ common combination of voltages. Then, armed with the voltage and power numbers and the dimensions of the existing (burned) PS you'll need to research the online catalog of some commercial electronics vendors. Here in the states I'd go to a company like Mouser or Digi-Key. I don't know which ones are available to you in Europe but there are sure to be a few that will deal with small orders.

I don't know what your power or size requirements are but you will most likely wind up looking through page after page of catalogs looking something like this:

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figuring out which unit(s) meet your needs and budget simultaneously. It might actually wind up being cheaper and easier buying two separate smaller supplies if you need two voltages. With some luck and cleaning of smoky residue you may be able to determine what company made your existing PS and go to them directly to determine a suitable worldwide-voltage replacement.

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John McGaw
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Reply to
John McGaw

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Open up the box, and take a look at the label on the side of the power supply. Note the details (volts @ amps). Write it all down. Next, take a ruler, and measure the power supply. What are the length, width, height ? Are there any fans on the power supply, or any vent areas of note ? The dimensions of the supply, and the fittings (screw holes where it mounts on the back), might tell us if a standard form factor is being used.

It is hard to tell from the above picture, whether there are vent holes in the power supply, that extend to the outside, or not.

Paul

Reply to
Paul

Most switchers first rectify the mains to produce about 250V dc. For 120 mains they do this via a voltage doubler. You could replace that with a bridge for 240 mains, assuming you can first repair the damage already done. Then you don't have to fool about with the individual supply lines. Assuming.

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 "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. 
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Reply to
CBFalconer

Following up on my own note. Thanks for the many replies. I will look into the PDF link.

The System is a Terastation Pro (

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), not a Terastation which is shown in one of the repliers links. They have different power supplies. The one in the Terastation is a closed box PS, the one in the pro is a PCB based one

I posted pictures (vga quality) of the power supply on Flickr:

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intention is to view them from bottom right to top left.

- Size PCB is 10-15.5 cm

- Specs required is 100V-240V, 50/60Hz, 0.6A

- Small sticker on the PCB reads:

85310056 RU US (first R in mirror writing) GS TAM 0603

Aragorn.

Reply to
aragorn

In the days when I used to repair monitors & PSU boxes, it was quite common to be presented with 120V gear that had accidentally been plugged into 240V. Often the damage looks a lot worse than it actually is and its quite rare for the MB to be damaged, a good repair engineer should be able to rebuild the PSU (I frequently did) - even if they have to re link vaporised print traces!

Since the PSU went bang, its obviously not an autodetecting dual voltage type, so at least check to see if there are 2 large electrolytics connected to the mains rectifier, if there are it means that the PSU is basically a

230V converter with the option of linking the junction between the 2 series connected electrolytics to one AC arm of the bridge rectifier to act as a voltage doubler - so it can work on 120V.

If there is only one smoothing electrolytic then it is a single voltage converter, you can get around the 120V problem using the primary winding of a mains transformer as an auto transformer - RS components used to stock transformers in a variety of VA ratings which have 2 identical 120V primary windings that are wired in parallel for 120V supply or series for 220V. Ignore whatever secondaries the transformer has and wire the primaries in series for 220V, the tap then gives 110V, make sure the transformer has the same VA rating as the PSU watts.

Reply to
ian field

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If you look up 85310056 here:

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you end up with an entry from a company called Tamura. The "TAM" on the label, nicely correlates. But none of the entries in the list on this page, seems to match this exact supply.

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Judging by the wiring on the device, it puts out +5 and +12 (red and yellow), and those voltages are used by the disk drives. The ratio of wires suggests the supply is rated for

1.5x as many amps on +12V, as on +5V. And with four disk drives in the unit, to be safe you'd need at least 12V @ 10A capability to spin up all four drives at the same time. (Once the drives finish spin-up, the current drops back to about 12V @ 0.5A per drive. Some equipment uses staggered spinup of the drives, so not as large a power supply is needed.)

I tried looking on tamuracorp.com , but cannot match that unit with what is on their site. If shopping for a replacement, finding the exact connector style (1x10 output) would be a challenge.

The 1x5 AC input power header seems to be some kind of standard, but I don't know what the pinout options are.

I am curious about one thing. How did you manage to connect

220V to the unit ? If the unit came with a North American plug on it, it must have been a bit tricky to plug it in.

Paul

Reply to
Paul

Thank you for the very insightful post. I will try to go for hunting taking your suggestions.

How I managed it? Too simply probably. The power cable input to the Power Supply is standard World Wide. I only had to take a local computer power cable which fits nicely in the input. Put the other side into the 220V power plug and tick .... tick .... tick ... pfffsshshshs . The really annoying part is that I bought through provantage 1U rack servers before and they by default come with

100V-220V power supplies. So I let my guard down on that.

Aragorn.

Reply to
aragorn

ian,

Repairing may indeed be an option I could chase by trying to find a shop that still does these things. And your explanation may help there. I am not an expert in PSU's, but I did make some pictures and wonder if you could take a look at

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(look pictures right down to left up).

pic(063) gives a nice top level view. I am sure the biggest condensator(?) (the one at the right) got toast because it got slightly deformed and "bled" some juice. I don't know about damage to the others.

Aragorn

ian field wrote: snip

Reply to
aragorn

It has a single reservoir cap, so it's not dual voltage - if you get it repaired you'll have to use an auto-transformer!

Reply to
ian field

Yes that cap is 200-something volts, it needs replaced. You may also find some of the transistors on the (in pic 63) right-side heatsink need replaced. An example of how to check BJTs with a meter after removing them,

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Of course you should also carefully inspect other components and the traces, and if I'd repaired this I would hook it up to a dummy load to take readings before reconnecting to the mainboard.

The rest of the caps are likely fine. As Ian suggested as the second alternative you could use an autotransformer to tap half the mains voltage to run this, or any typical 2:1 voltage (travel) converter is what you'd typically find in stores... the transformer type, not the tiny triac(?) type that is only for resistive loads. Given the device you should look for at least 150W rating if not more (more is nice but depending on the price-break, no need to overdo it).

Reply to
kony

The other idea is that this looks like a typical open frame switcher, it may not be very hard to find a replacement PSU that fits and outputs enough 12V, 5V current. Here in the states you can even find some that might work for about $10-20... but whether they're full range or only 110V, I don't recall... certainly over THERE, you should find what you need.

Reply to
kony

Paul,

One question. I have been trying to look up 85310056 on the first URL, but I get "nothing found". The second URL has an almost equal number "84310056[*r]" on the page, but not 85310056 So I am curious to know, how did you get to Tamura from the 85310056 number through the first URL?

I am planning to contact Tamura, but I would like to be able to tell them how I got to them in a "logical" fashion in order to get (hopefully) better support.

Thank you in advance,

Aragorn

Reply to
aragorn

... snip about 120/240 V power supplies ...

Not necessarily. As I explained else thread, you may be able to replace a voltage doubler with a full wave rectifier.

--
 "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. 
  They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country
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Reply to
CBFalconer

Paul,

Don't answer that. I made somewhere an error in the google posting. On Flickr and on my notes, I wrote 84310056 and not 85310056. I made a mistake writing it Mystery solved. Sorry about the confusion. I am going to contact Tamura now, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Aragorn.

aragorn wrote:

Reply to
aragorn

if it truly is 100v-240v input but NOT obviously auto switching, there ought to be a pluggable jumper, or a switch, or maybe a solder jumper to change from 100-120v to 200-240v. If you've cooked one of the caps you have some repairs to do, but look for some indication on the PCB for a voltage change. If you need repair parts just visit your town dump or cruise the streets on pickup day for dead computers. The caps and rectifiers in most any PC supply are pretty standard parts. If you've blown a switcher IC or transistor or control IC - well that may call for a replacement supply. good luck tomh

Reply to
tomh

You can't make the voltage doubler without 2 reservoir caps and the OP posted links to pictures of the unit which show it only has one, so there is no voltage doubler to replace with a full wave rectifier, and the bridge rectifier is there whether its a doubler circuit or not - do please try to pay attention!!!

Reply to
ian field

I guess you never patched a circuit board. Tools such as Xacto knives, Dremels, etc. are useful, not to mention a soldering iron.

--
 "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. 
  They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country
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Reply to
CBFalconer

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