[sebhc] H89 BOOT SUCCESS

[Barry Watzman]

If you mean the flyback transformer in the monitor, yes.  But other than
that, the power supply in the H/Z-19/88/89/90 was totally linear.

That's not what is usually meant, however.

You don't have to enclose linear power supplies because they generate no
noise to radiate.  And also, the issue in the 19/89's wasn't so much from
the flyback, but from the deflection yoke.  The flyback was relatively far
from the disk drive, but the yoke was much closer.  Other than the floppy
disk drive heads, there was no issue at all.

Barry Watzman


-----Original Message-----
From: sebhc-bounces at sebhc.org [mailto:sebhc-bounces at sebhc.org] On Behalf Of
Paul A. Pennington
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 17:46 PM
To: sebhc at sebhc.org
Subject: Re: [sebhc] H89 BOOT SUCCESS


    Barry said:

> The power supplies in all Zenith products prior to the Z-100 series were
> linear power supplies, while the power supplies in all PCs are switching
> power supplies.

    Not true:  the H/Z-89/90 had the mother of all switching power supplies 
inches away from the disk drive in the form of a CRT assembly.  I glossed 
over that detail because I thought everybody on the list already knew that.

> There is no issue with a linear supply being "open" vs. in
> a metal box.  In fact, the reason for the metal box is that switching 
> power
> supplies have lethal voltages in them, while linear power supplies do not
> (except on the primary side of the main power transformer).

    My experience on that has been different.  While protection is one 
reason to enclose switchers, a bigger benefit, in my opinion, is less 
radiated noise from the switching circuitry.  You don't have to take my word

for it:  bring an oscilloscope probe near an open switcher (or CRT).  You'll

see some pretty wild voltages floating around.

    My statement about Heath vs. PC's was based on swapping several Tandon 
disk drives between a Z-100 (non-CRT model) and an original IBM PC.  To me, 
this pins the noise down to the switching power supply:  some drives that 
worked in the PC would not work in the Z-100.  I observed the same thing 
with Kaypro computers (with open switcher) vs. the PC.

    That's my story, and I'm sticking to it :-)  On what do you base your 
opinion that radiated noise from switching power supplies is "not relevant"?

    Paul Pennington
    Augusta, Georgia

--
Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List


--
Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List