Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
After unscrewing four screws, including the one with the warranty seal, the internals of the Thermaltake Litepower 450W are revealed. A quick note to mention is that opening your power supply as we have done here will inevitably void your warranty.
As seen in the photo above, the electronics component board is actually quite a bit than the enclosure as evident from its distance to the rear mesh -- this will help distribute heat exhaust better. The board is positioned towards the back of the power supply itself, and explains the location of the fan as mentioned on the previous page.
The initial transient filtering stage is placed on the side near the mesh of the power supply case; this includes the two ferrite coils, two X capacitors and a single Y capacitor. This is typical of budget power supply by reducing the number of X and Y capacitors to bring down the overall cost of the PSU.
There are three small aluminum heatsinks that are used to dissipate heat away from its internal components. These heatsinks are spaced pretty far apart allowing to provides lots of room for air to move around in the PSU itself, although this reduces contact area for heat dissipation.
The Litepower 450W is dominated by four large components at first look -- that would be the three heatsinks as aforementioned, and a big black filter capacitor -- where a closer examination reveals that it is manufactured by Teapo of Taiwan. It appears to us that the Litepower manufactured in Taiwan by Fortron with many Taiwanese components. The filter capacitor is an LH-series cap, which is more or less for normal usage; and is not a LF-series which features a longer lifetime. Although other components are more likely to become faulty before the filter capacitor does. we're not going to worry too much here and lose sleep over it haha.
On this side all of the cables are neatly soldered on the FSPXXX-60GHY series mainboard, which is again manufactured by the FSP Group (otherwise known as Fortron). The power supply's actual manufacturer or OEM is FSP/Fortron Source -- as you, like every intelligent reader, would have made that guess by now heh! Thermaltake customized it with their own fan, but that should be all the customized changes as far as I know. All cables are all non-detachable, meaning if you want to swap the fan, you'll have to cut it out and resolder it back in. It's really nothing out of the ordinary.
The power switch, automatic full range (100V-240V) AC line voltage selector, and the power adapter are all revealed to clearly us from this perspective. All of this is soldered on fairly cleanly and effectively.
Also visible from this picture is a Y capacitor which is the yellow box located between the iron ferrite coils. Hidden behind the coils are the two blue X capacitors, which can be spied with a white glob of plastic-like material over it.
Finally, the stock fan is a Thermaltake TT-1225A 120mm ball-bearing fan, which is manufactured by Yate Loon; a reputable manfucaturers for case fans from Taiwan. This fan is standard for many Thermaltake products, which is interesting to mention because it is a pretty top-end standalone fan from Thermaltake, excluding their new TurboFan. The fan doesn't look especially spectacular, and fits in with the overall feel of the power supply -- but that isn't a necessarily a bad thing. Chances are, you will never open up any PSU in your whole lifetime or even look at your power supply from that angle, so why worry about internal looks?
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
