On Thu, 05 Jan 2017 14:24:04 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

In article ,
John Williamson wrote:
On 05/01/2017 12:48, Tim Watts wrote:
On 05/01/17 09:49, John Williamson wrote:
The SMPS will have the same level of isolation as a heavy transformer
based one, it will be more efficient and a lot smaller. They also run
cooler, so are less likely to overheat if covered by bedding.

And yet Youtube is full of videos of exploded and charred wall warts and
phone chargers!

Now consider how many are in daily use...

Also, when heavy iron was in vogue, what percentage melted after a
while? From personal experience it was a higher percentage than the
number of SMPS wallwarts that fail nowadays.

Unless I can vouch for the brand, for a homebuild I'd MUCH rather have a
50Hz transformer from RS. Simple, naff all to go wrong and who cares
about a few watts.

For homebuilding, yes, but then you have the choice of unregulated with
a ridiculously high output impedance, losing a lot of energy in a
passive regulator or building your own SMPS to do the job.

The point that seems to have been misses is getting CE approval. If the
equipment has a mains supply then th whole device needs to be submitted,
otherwise it's only the pwer unit. In addition different power units can be
suppled for different countries without changing the whole device.