My Vero 4K+ has been working relatively flawless since I got it. Yesterday I went to watch a movie and saw that the box would not power up or be reached by SSH. I checked the power at the pin and got 5.25V. The unit would power sort of up, red LED would go on but go no further. I did see that there was no light coming from the optical out. Hmmmmmmm. I did manage to find a 5V-2500ma adapter in the house, swapped out the supposedly working power adapter and voila, the box fired right up.
I quess the question is, do power supplies degrade over time? Even though it was delivering 5.25V could it be that it no longer produces the milliamps required to get through the boot process?
Yes, particularly these compact enclosed switch mode types.
If your testing it without a load that only really tells you that it isn’t completely dead. A given PSU will be typically spec’d at delivering a specific voltage at a specific current. This is to say that is can maintain a regulated voltage up to a specific rated load. If you start to draw a higher amount of current then at some point the voltage will start to drop (and if you keep going you might let the magic smoke out ). Over time with these kinds of PSU’s they can degrade such that where they once may have been able to maintain their rated voltage at the current needed they can now only do so with smaller loads. That is where you see situations where someones device works only without a particular USB device attached where it used to be able to handle it just fine.
I lost two 4k+ to bad power supply, I’m not sure why Sam doesnt source some better ones. No other boxes I have need to be plugged straight into the wall and have never failed. This isn’t a complaint and maybe Sam is overthinking the electronics side of things rather than just get a stable regulated power supply.
Vero 4K + PSU failure stays the same YoY, and I said in August 2023:
As of late, we’re seeing about 2 in 100 PSUs fail over a 24 month period. This is well in spec for consumer electronics. We are always looking at ways to improve the reliability of our products however.
Numbers aren’t out for Vero V – we only launched in November, but I’m planning for 1 in 1000.
Vero V is a huge step up in terms of physical manufacturing quality; QA testing; software engineering.
The sad truth is that you only catch faults in a product after it’s gone to market. But I think it’s how you respond to this that matters.
The last significant place of manufacturing of Vero V is now in the UK. It’s packed by people in the UK. And it’s sold by us in the UK.
I read every post on this forum, and while I may not always respond, always take note and look at how we can improve things. There’s always something to learn and always something to improve.
). Over time with these kinds of PSU’s they can degrade such that where they once may have been able to maintain their rated voltage at the current needed they can now only do so with smaller loads. That is where you see situations where someones device works only without a particular USB device attached where it used to be able to handle it just fine.