Power Supply Failure Survey--Part III

Focus:

This article series about the author’s LinkedIn survey of why power supplies fail continues with a focus on failures attributed to magnetic components, which were found to be the third most popular cause of power supply failure. After some brief comments on engineers’ lack of knowledge about magnetics design, the article discusses (and ranks in terms of importance) thermal stress, saturation, mechanical failure, voltage breakdown, manufacturing error and other sources of magnetics-related power supply failures. The author shares the experiences of the designers surveyed as well as his own with regard to these issues including explanations of why these problems occur and how to avoid them.

What you’ll learn:

• How to understand the impact of magnetics-related problems on power supply reliability
• How to prevent magnetics related power supply failures

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Author & Publication:

Dr. Ray Ridley, President, Ridley Engineering, Power Systems Design Europe, Apr 06 2014

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