I got a power supply with no instructions

[MrGibbage]

I ordered a power supply off Amazon from some Chinese company and it came with no instructions. Anyone have any ideas on how I can check the right way to hook it up?



I think the 120AC will connect to the rightmost two connectors, and the ground with connect to the 3rd from the right. Does it matter which way I connect the two AC lines? What do you suppose "L" and "N" stand for? Line and Neutral???

I opened the case, and the fuse was right next to the second from the right, if that helps. Is there anything I can do to be sure that these are the right places to connect the 120AC? These are the only terminals on the whole power supply, so it has to be these, right?

 

[pete_c]

It "appears" to be labeled the same way that my DIN 12VDC power supplies are labled except that ground, neutral and load are on one side and the DC voltage is on the other side.

 

[Del91574]

Since this was foreign equipment, are you sure that 120 VAC is a suitable input? One of the companies I used to work for would import and modify chinese equipment for the US market and it was always necessary to yank the supplies and install appropriate US ones.

Strange that they would fuse the neutral, very counterintuitive.

 

[CORT]

My guess is L is line or black supply in. N is neutral or white supply in. The ground symbol is your ground or green--will likely have a very low resistance to chassis. It looks like there is trim pot next to the green LED for you to fine tune output voltage. It appears that there are 3x +VDC and 3x -VDC screws for your outputs. Check with your voltmeter once you've applied power.

 

[tmbrown97]

Heh - glad it's not just me! When I got my first one of those I wasn't 100% sure what to do either, so I called an electrician friend to confirm. I was importing directly from China.

The right 3 terminals (from right to left) are Load/Black, Neutral/White, Ground - on the other side, the left 3 are 12V+ then the next 3 are 12V-. And as stated above, the trim pot should let you fine tune the voltage.

I've been using them to drive high density LED ribbon strips - they seem to work great.

Not sure what fuse DEL is talking about - I didn't see it.

 

[MrGibbage]

Yes, it is definitely a 120V power supply. It even has a switch on the side for 120/220.

I'm going to hook it up tonight and see if we got it right here.

I am going to use it for some sirens. I guess it would be better to put the output relay in line with the 120AC source voltage, rather than leave it on all the time and relay the output in this case. But then again, I might just decide that I need a constant 12V power supply somewhere, and it might be better to relay the output. There's no UL label on it, so I don't know if I should trust it to be on all the time.

 

[standon]

I have this exact same power supply, it's actually a decent brand, Meanwell.

Here's how I hooked mine up. Adj =V is DC voltage out +, -V is DC negative. You can hook up to 3. Then Ground, Neutral and Line (Green, White and Black) direct to 3 prong plug.