Questions concerning ac power and noise.

[Pure_Brew]

Ok I'm not sure how or where to ask such a question but here goes.

First a brief description of the component.

If a simple DC power supply is built without a transformer and connected up to a 120v outlet, the caps being fed by a diode will charge up at around 170vdc until the power gets used. I have such a supply in an amplifier that will feed a huge relay for it. The relay, which normally operates on 120v AC directly will simply be fed from the DC from this supply instead ( which is holding at about 10v dc due to resistance loading after the initial spike).

Might sound odd but it works amazing and keeps the relay quiet.

Ok so when the amp is off, this DC supply is still hooked up and live as long as the amp is plugged in. So I guess what I'm kind of curious about is how this could effect other components plugged into the same outlet?

Furthermore this makes me wonder about things like the PS Audio noise harvester that used to be on the market. A little box with a light on it that apparently also had some "storage". Smoke and mirrors aside, I've owned at least one product of theirs, the humbuster, and that thing actually does work on noisy toroidial transformers but I digress.

But thinking on that harvester, could it be that the light was just a diode with some caps? And did this thing actually do something, even though it was just hooked up to the AC line all by itself without components actual running through it? I'm going with yes in some cases, but likely a difficult product to market as it could also have no effect at all.

Anyway if your eyes haven't rolled into the back of your head yet please read on.

So anyway, I had tried this amp with this supply and a tube amp on the top half of my speakers but I didn't like the complexity of the setup so I shut the big amp off and disconnected the speakers. However it has remained plugged into the outlet with the other components. The strange thing is the system performance seemed improved in some way and some noise issues went away that I was experiencing prior to having this amp hooked into the wall.

So I know this is a bit of a stretch, but is it possible that this supply could somehow be effecting my other components- positively?

Now truthfully I haven't tested by unplugging the amp as I'm not sure I would even notice anything right away, but I should try.

Anyway thanks for reading this crazy post!

[Mooly]

I remember

If you mean "does this precharged cap etc" have any effect on other items connected to the supply then the absolutely correct theoretical answer is "yes"... it distorts the mains by drawing microscopic assymetric pulses to keep the cap charged. Which isn't what you wanted to hear

In practice that means 0.00000000000000000000001 % of an effect (or less )

Not sure if that is what you mean or not.

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Commercial units vary as to what they do... some are just simple filters, some are correctly designed and very comprehensive in offering line to line and line to ground filtering together with an DC blocking action to stop hum on toroids (well known problem that one).

As to "storing" AC power. You can't as such. You can generate AC from a stored DC supply (such as an uninteruptable PSU that has a battery backup). There's a lot of spin on the terms used like much in audio. But you can't "store" the AC mains to fill in drop outs etc just using a few passive parts.

[Pure_Brew]

Hey there I thought you might chime in. I know what you mean by spin on terms and although I wouldn't discredit PS Audio, the results and importance of products sold vary. And sometimes used incorrectly by consumers.

As far as storage goes, I'm not sure exactly what they meant, but I'm sure it isn't about storage for your components as you say.

Have you ever looked at their "Noise Harvester"?
PS Audio - Noise Harvester (you have to click on the "continue reading" to get the whole story.)
I think right out of the gate many people were highly skeptical and dismissive about it.



But lets assume it actually does something.

What....?

[SY]

Originally Posted by Pure_Brew

If a simple DC power supply is built without a transformer and connected up to a 120v outlet...

...then what you have is a death trap. This is stupidly and deadly dangerous (not just to you, but to some innocent person who touches the seemingly innocuous wrong thing at the wrong time), illegal in most places, and thoroughly against Forum rules.

Thread closed.