Remember that a *lot* of Amazon Marketplace kit that plugs into the mains is not safety-certified (which means it's illegal to sell here and it's illegal to use; Amazon washes their hands of responsibility for anything "sold" by a third-party through their marketplace, though product actually "sold by Amazon" is certified).

Some of it is absolutely fine and the vendor just hasn't spent the money for a safety certification, but I've found many, many devices that could never pass a safety cert and should never go near mains power.

Obviously anyone purchasing a benchtop power supply generally has the skill to assess the safety of their own kit, but unless you take the box apart and check the internals, I wouldn't have confidence in (e.g.) the mains isolation of many of these uncertified supplies.

-Chris

(the marketplace vendor ads are amusing in this regard -- the ad for one of the benchtop supplies on amazon.ca assures you that it's completely safe because it has a fuse (!), and another advertises that the *detachable cord* is UL-certified :-/   CE/RoHS/FCC is also often promoted as safety certification but of course it's nothing of the sort)


On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 2:08 AM William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hi all,

    (Cross-posted to both GTALUG and KWLUG, because I belong to both.
    Please reply to the list you're subscribed to.  Otherwise, mail
    admin gets mad at me.)


I need a benchtop power supply (0-30V, 0-5A, though 0-10A would be
nice).

Question:
- What brand do you recommend?
- Amazon.ca recommends "Sky Toppower" brand.  Anyone have experience
  with these?

--
William Park <opengeometry@yahoo.ca>
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