RFI
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [RFI] Keurig coffee vs Astron Rs35M

To: rfi@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RFI] Keurig coffee vs Astron Rs35M
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:00:33 -0700
List-post: <rfi@contesting.com">mailto:rfi@contesting.com>
On 4/10/2014 10:49 PM, Gary Smith wrote:
As to the Keurig & the Astron... I do love the Keurig, I use the
refillable coffee holders and it does make a fine cup but I digress.
As was mentioned earlier, the Astron was terribly made as regards
grounding. The wire grounding from the negative DC out was bolted to
the chassis but it was on paint on both sides and the round plug was
attached to the chassis exactly the same way. I connected both of
these ring terminals to one bolt and removed the paint on both sides
to make a true ground.

The three I opened had exactly that problem, and I did what you did. Except that I removed the bond between V- and that terminal strip so that V- floats. There are good reasons for doing that.

I tried figuring out what was making the hum in the Astron when the
Keurig was on and it seems to be coming from the transformer (which
is really warmer than I expected). I removed the DC connection and
just had the Astron plugged into the AC and I still was hearing that
intermittent humming when the Keurig was on. Nothing I could press on
in the PS made the noise stop. I finally put three large ferrite
clamp-ons with three loops each on the power cord to the Astron and
now I can still hear the hum but now it's greatly reduced and hard to
hear over the fan in the amp, so that is a real bit of progress.

Hmmmm! That last sentence strongly suggests an RFI or circuit instability issue (oscillation) -- those chokes on the power cable are adding some common mode Z above about 10-15 MHz, but only a small amount of inductance at power frequencies. Things are getting curiouser!

Something else to look at --it would be interesting to know if that Keurig box is connecting neutral and green. It should NOT. Easy way to figure out. Plug the Keurig into a multi-outlet box, and measure AC voltage between neutral and ground (the big blade and the round hole) with the Keurig running. You SHOULD see some AC voltage between neutral and green that is approximately equal to the IR drop from the panel for the neutral conductor only (there should be no current on the green wire).

Back to your noisy wall wart problem -- my solution has been to replace all the SMPS warts with linear warts that I buy at hamfests and flea markets. Unless I've missed some, the only SMPSs in my home and shack are in my Rigol Spectrum Analyzer, Rigol Scope, and some Thinkpad power supplies. I discovered the Rigol SMPSs when I was using one to probe other equipment, and found residual around the back of the Rigol!

73, Jim K9YC



_______________________________________________
RFI mailing list
RFI@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rfi

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>