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PSA: that 'dead' power supply on my shop bench was just a blown fuse under the sticker
I picked up an old AT tower at a garage sale in Akron for $8 last month, mostly for the case, and the guy swore it was dead. I figured the power supply was toast so I almost tossed it, but before that I peeled back the little warning sticker on the side and there was a glass fuse right there in a holder. Sure enough it was blown, and it turned out to be a 250V 3A slow blow, 75 cents for a two pack at the hardware store down the street. Swapped it in, and the thing fired right up on the first try, rails all reading good on my meter. What I learned is to check the cheap stuff first and read the label, because I would have tossed a working supply out of pure habit. Also made me wonder how many of these got binned back in the day for a dime part. Has anyone else found a fuse hiding under a sticker like that, or am I the last one to figure it out?
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nelson.finley15h ago
A blown fuse is just a blown fuse, not some hidden secret that changes everything. You got lucky that the supply didn't have a real problem hiding behind it, and a new fuse can pop again the second something downstream is shorted. Cheap fix, sure, but calling it a win before you've run it under load for a while is jumping the gun.
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