OWC external case (5-pin 5V/12V) power output less than 11V?

[1moremac]

Hi,

Just curious if others have found that the Jentecs that came with various OWC external HDD enclosures are slipping below spec output voltage as they age.

When troubleshooting an out of warranty OWC case (turned out the IDE drive was bad), I happened to check the voltage coming out of the Jentec 5V/12V AC power adapter 5 pin (ADB/S-Video-ish) plug.

5V was fine, but the 12 only measured about 10.3 V.

Had a few similarly powered Mercurys and miniStacks around, and found a couple of the other Jentec 5 pins (also green printed label) were also below 11V.

(For the models in question, the 2 pins grouped together were ground, the first 2 of the other group of 3 were 5V, and the third of the 3 was "12V".

Thanks for any info about your experiences.

 

[uniserver]

what were the years of manufacture of the power bricks would you guess?

 

[1moremac]

Well, hard to tell ages exactly (just haphazardly added FW storage as space was needed), except for the newest - two 4 yr old SATA miniStacks (one at 10.4V and the other at 11.8V (unlike the others, this adapter has 4 rubber foot pads and its label has thinner font green print).

The others in question, best guess is those are about 6-8 years old - they're Mercury Elite (aluminum style) IDE enclosures which iirc came out to match the aluminum grille G5 circa 2004 - one is at 10.7V and the other 10.8V. And FWIW an "extra" black-print label 5-pin Jentec is outputting 11.95V.

Edit: Not enough data to be significant but looks like all the 10.xV outputs are green label JTA0202Y adapter models.

 

[uniserver]

sounds like you may have a case of bad caps. , maybe open them up and check for leaking or bulging caps.

 

[techknight]

Bad caps......

 

[1moremac]

Sigh. Caps once again. The bane of vintage electronics...

Wish I had been old enough to learn to solder etc. when my uncle the "TV man" was around, doing repairs in his basement. I do remember that back then he called them condensers.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a peek if I can find an easy way inside one of the units.

 

[techknight]

Hot knife, only way... Unless you use a good razor and maybe tap with a hammer, But you can chew into circuit boards that way.

 

[1moremac]

Curiosity got the best of me. Y'all called it right as usual: a big dome on a mercedes-benz logo topped cap - though not obviously venting yet.

Whew getting inside was an experience. (That what they call plastic welding?)

Thanks.