Do NOT buy a pyramid power supply.

Discussion in 'CB Radio Forum' started by Farmboy319, Sep 28, 2014.

  1. Farmboy319

    Farmboy319 Bobtail Member

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    Jul 13, 2014
    Southern California
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    About a year ago, I bough a small 3 amp power supply from pyramid. Works great. Well about 2 weeks ago I bought another pyramid power supply but this time it was a 20 amp, because I needed more power. So when it got to my house I was all happy and wanted to test it out. We'll I hooked up my cobra 148gtl and my rm Italy kl60 amplifier. I turned on the power supply first. then the radio, and then the amp. I look at the power meter and it's only drawing 11 amps. All of a sudden it makes this weird very loud hum. I turned the radio and amp off. As I am walking over to turn the power supply off, smoke starts coming from it. I bought this darn thing for 110$, I'm pretty sure it is supposed to work. In my opinion it's a piece of china made junk. Buy an astron or Pyle power supply instead of pyramid.

    just my opinion. 73's
     
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  3. ThatFlatbedGuy2013

    ThatFlatbedGuy2013 Medium Load Member

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    Feb 4, 2013
    Somewhere in the US of A
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    Are you sure it wasn't the amp and radio combo causing it to overwork its self?
     
  4. Ridgeline

    Ridgeline Road Train Member

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    Astron PS, yep buy that but a Pyle?

    Mine was made in China, lasted one month and then took a crap under half load (18 amps) so I gutted it, put in a new regulator board cobbled together from my parts box and it has been working ever since. No complaints at all with the transformer or the rectifiers.

    You can't get away from Chinese made anything, unless you want to pay good money.
     
  5. Farmboy319

    Farmboy319 Bobtail Member

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    Jul 13, 2014
    Southern California
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    A friend of mine has the same power supply. I hooked up the amp and radio to his power supply and it works great. That's the reason why I got the power supply I did. And about the Pyle power supply, my uncle had a Pyle power supply and he loved it so that's why i mentioned Pyle. I didn't know they were made in China.
     
  6. MsJamie

    MsJamie Road Train Member

    I'm surprised that Pyramid is still in business.
     
  7. poppapump1332

    poppapump1332 Road Train Member

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    birdsboro,pa
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    Get what you pay for should of spent the extra and got a astron.I wouldnt buy anything made by pyramid.
     
  8. Turbo-T

    Turbo-T Road Train Member

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    Back 15 + years when I was heavy into car audio, Pyramid was one of the laughing stocks of electronics. Crappy sounding amps and subwoofers that had next to no bass...I can't imagine their power supplies are any better.
     
    poppapump1332 Thanks this.
  9. Big_m

    Big_m Heavy Load Member

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    Oct 13, 2009
    Central Maryland
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    Contact them for a replacement.
     
  10. MsJamie

    MsJamie Road Train Member

    I remember going to a computer show (remember those?) back in the '90s, and there was a car audio show in a different wing of the same building. There was a Pyramid display there, and they had their big amp on display... 250W total; 125W/channel. It was huge... about 18" x 8" or so, and had a very impressive anodized heat sink on the top.

    It had a 10A fuse in the 12V power line.

    ---

    Explanation for the non-techies: A true 250W audio power amp can pull close to 500W from the power supply on audio peaks; about half of the power gets turned to heat. Hence the huge heat sinks. The fuse would blow if the amp tried to pull more than 120W from the power line.

    The 75W amp (37.5W/channel) I was using at the time had a 10A fuse, which I blew a few times.
     
  11. M818

    M818 Light Load Member

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    Apr 27, 2011
    Dallas, Texas
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    Most car stereo amps from off brands, and many that are intended to be sold to booming-bass lovers and rap-music lovers have their power rated at clipping, max. output. This is because that is how those idiots run their stuff. Divide by two and the RMS power is somewhere close. The attached is a sanitized page from a current wholesale catalog, which informs dealers as to peak and RMS ratings, so that the salesperson knows what to say. -so the practice is common, nothing wrong with it as long as the customer is not lied to.
    New Bitmap Image.jpg

    On the power supply - Could have some RF gotten into the Pyramid power supply? they are not always made to resist that. I have not had much trouble with pyramid or pyle if it was not abused or run at max power in a hot environment. Maybe it was just bad luck, infant mortality?
    With any power supply good or bad it is best to blow a fan on the heat sink. That includes the backsides of radios.. where the RF power supply resides..
     
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