exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Just found this PSU 1 or 2 months ago while browsing the net:

https://www.c64psu.com/atari-st-psu/90- ... l-psu.html

and since I cannot find other information concerning it, I would like to know if anyone of you know something (more ?) about it.

IMHO, it is overpriced for a Meanwell RPT-6003 fitted on an extra board, allowing a PnP connection.

Any comments ?

Looks like a rehash of their Amiga PSU to fit the ST internal form factor.

Yeah, it's the same PSU.

It rather is an RPD-60A... no need for 3.3V in the ST.

tzok wrote: 10 Mar 2024 09:51 It rather is an RPD-60A... no need for 3.3V in the ST.

Yes, you're right.

I had my Falcon's Meanwell PSU in mind...

Very overpriced IMHO.

You can get an RD-50A for less than £20 and they are more than up to the job.

It seems expensive yes, but if I ever did a new batch of my PSU's, I would likely double the price as they are a lot of work and I wanted to use different PSU chips anyway. But that's another project redesign which I don't want. I don't expect any would sell at that price anyway. Plus the market is so small and more and more people doing such things these days. So I was looking more to the future for a simple low cost solution. Of course most people these days are bashing in RD-50A PSUs anyway as they are cheap.

I did build a new PSU some time ago, which is DIY form, using Meanwell PSU blocks. It's designed to be low cost (because of DIY). I would only sell the PCBs for it. There are 2 options for PSU blocks, depending on spec. But in my tests I got about 50mV P-P ripple+noise. So it's still much better than the original PSU. But as @rubber_jonnie said, Its £20 for a MW PSU, A PCB and PSU blocks alone will likely be double that. So it's difficult to know where to go with the PSUs these days.

exxos wrote: 10 Mar 2024 10:48 It seems expensive yes, but if I ever did a new batch of my PSU's, I would likely double the price as they are a lot of work and I wanted to use different PSU chips anyway. But that's another project redesign which I don't want. I don't expect any would sell at that price anyway. Plus the market is so small and more and more people doing such things these days. So I was looking more to the future for a simple low cost solution. Of course most people these days are bashing in RD-50A PSUs anyway as they are cheap.

I guess it's an unfortunate side effect of development time plus low volumes that will push up the price, and when you do a cost/benefit analysis, for the average ST user it just isn't worth it when the RD-50A is so cheap and readily available.

exxos wrote: 10 Mar 2024 10:48 I did build a new PSU some time ago, which is DIY form, using Meanwell PSU blocks. It's designed to be low cost (because of DIY). I would only sell the PCBs for it. There are 2 options for PSU blocks, depending on spec. But in my tests I got about 50mV P-P ripple+noise. So it's still much better than the original PSU. But as @rubber_jonnie said, Its £20 for a MW PSU, A PCB and PSU blocks alone will likely be double that. So it's difficult to know where to go with the PSUs these days.

I've seen a few PSU's using those blocks, and they seem like a really good way to easily put together a custom PSU relatively cheaply. But then comes the cost/benefit analysis again...

Seems to me that Meanwell are undercutting themselves in some scenarios.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 10 Mar 2024 12:18 I've seen a few PSU's using those blocks, and they seem like a really good way to easily put together a custom PSU relatively cheaply. But then comes the cost/benefit analysis again...

Yep. Amiga stuff sells like 1000x more than Atari stuff does. Loads of amiga people just seem to be willing to pay almost anything for anything. In Atari land, the user base is probably the worst of all the retro computers, and the users don't overall tend to spend much.

I mean it's like £15 for a recap kit.. £20 for a MW.. but it's a bit of a "hack job". So £40 for something neater isn't to bad.. Though I think once you start getting to £60-£100 type costs.. It's understandable people would look for something cheaper.

While I did want to use a different set of regulators than my current PSU build, it's not something I want to do again. My price would be higher, postage is getting higher all the time, plus , again, cheap £20 MW PSU.. As I know, a lot don't appreciate the time and effort which goes into making things either. There's just no point in doing another PSU in that series anymore. I could waffle on for hours about it all.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 10 Mar 2024 12:18 Seems to me that Meanwell are undercutting themselves in some scenarios.

Yeah £20 seems way to cheap. I would really expect the potted modules to be cheaper to produce.. but may as they potted they not cheap.. Also maybe MW making zillions of the RD-50A to get the price down.. really no idea.

The ST community is certainly smaller than the Amiga, C64 and Spectrum ones but I wouldn't say that it's small. There are far smaller ones that I'm a member of, e.g. the Sinclair QL or the Memotech.

Having said that, the price expectation for add-ons is rather different. The ST side do want cheap and cheerful, more so than most of the others I feel, and sometimes somewhat over optimistic.