Propper way to hook up 2 power supplies together

[TonyV225]

Ok what Im looking for is some information on hooking up power supplies together for more amperage I know the rules on matching voltage and amperage but i need to know from those who have done this and are familiar with it.

What is the propper way to hook them up from one to the other also I knew a guy that had hooked a few pyramid 52 ampers together and the plastic power lugs melted on the supply that had the main wires that ran to the amplifier so he had replaced with metal lugs he purchased from astron to get rid of the problem.

Unfortunately this friend is no longer with us so I cant get info from him so I wanted to see what I could obtain information wise out here from people who have piggy back power supplies Im looking for both the do's and dont's.

 

[74IN]

I've run Astrons in parallel, but the PS closest to the load will carry most of the current and pass it on. The first one will go to max and than look for the next to help.

The terminals on the PS closest to the load might not have been up to the task of carrying that much current.

I had three Astron 35M's hooked together and that's what I experienced.

 

[Moleculo]

If the terminals can't handle the current available, you could always make a new harness that taps the supplies at the wire that runs between the supply. That's the way I would probably do it.

 

[smalltiredart]

I have an Astron RS-70M, and on the rear it has an extra terminal for hooking another in parallel.

 

[EDUK8TR]

Also take negative from one supply and positive from the other. That is what I was advised to do by the techs at Astron. I used to run three Astron 50 amp supplies to run a solid state amp. So I took negative from the first supply in line and positive from the last.

 

[Robb]

Also take negative from one supply and positive from the other. That is what I was advised to do by the techs at Astron. I used to run three Astron 50 amp supplies to run a solid state amp. So I took negative from the first supply in line and positive from the last.

Great tip!
Thanks

Q: Can one run a 20 amp supply with a 30 amp supply ehrn doing this? Or is this courting disaster?
I have a Vista XX-R and an XXX-R. I got both of them -for free- and fixed them. I was considering getting a Texas Star 667 if this would work.

 

[Moleculo]

Q: Can one run a 20 amp supply with a 30 amp supply ehrn doing this? Or is this courting disaster?

You can do it, but it could be hard on the smaller supply. It really depens on how much current you're plannign on using from the whole setup.

 

[dxhound]

i looked into linking 2 ps52s together also. I heard there are two tricks to doing this. One was mentioned about the neg and pos being on two seperate supplies. The other is to isolate them using a choke or 1:1 Balun of sorts.

All you need to do is when you connect the Neg to Neg and pos to pos, build an inline choke using 10 gauge wire and 1 inch pvc. put 30 wraps of the wire around the pvc so that each wrap of wire lays next to the last. This helps to keep one power supply from drawing on the other while idle, acting like an inductor/combiner network of sorts.

Or the easy thing is buy this 90 amper
Power Supplies

 

[SR385]

I would definitely not recommend linking two unlike supplies together.

If I even did this, it would be two identical models only.

 

[TonyV225]

I dont think Ide hook 2 different amperage supplies together either as said its going to create havoc on the smaller one.