Have been looking at this type of thing the last week or so, so was quite surprised when this b3603 popped up on banggood a good bit cheaper than everywhere else.
Should be ideal as a small bench psu and for testing LEDs out. A good demo video for this, along with lots of other good vids on dc-dc stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_KjmF1iI9w
aff link
DC LED Digital Controlled Step Down Driver Power Module
$12.55 / £7.98 Price every where else is $16/£10+
Thanks, this is much cheaper than elsewhere! I’ve been looking for a deal on one.
I downloaded the manual from here: http://m5.img.dxcdn.com/CDDriver/CD/sku.238638.doc
how safe is this, we all know about chinese electronics often not being designed well enough to pass safety standards
Safe for what?
components, isolation, able to pass csa that kind of thing
Well, it’s DC-DC, you power it by low enough voltage (12V or so) not to cause a housefire even if something goes wrong…
CSA? This or something else? Just asking out of curiosity.
i never knew about that one
or also:
Aha, thanks. I googled CSA+safety because I figured it was a safety certification - that’s how I ended up with the US government thing.
The LM2596 itself looks very simple to implement - to the point where doing it in an unsafe way might actually take a little effort. I don’t know how current control was implemented on this thing or other similar Chinese boards (CC is not part of LM2596 I think), I guess that’s the x-factor here.
Unless I’m mistaken marks like the CSA or CE mark are typically for consumer goods. This is a prototyping / hobbyist part and therefore wouldn’t receive that kind of certification. Other boards, such as this one which are set using trim pots might be more likely to be used inside a finished product of some kind. Based on my understanding the board itself would not normally get certified, only the assembled product as a whole. Someone else certainly might step in here and correct me on that understanding though…
edit: although I guess the question of whether it would be able to pass the cert is still relevant if you want to assemble a product!
regardless i would be using it indoors and i want it to be passable before i will consider buying it, if i am testing LEDs with it i want to know its a safe design so i can focus on the LED
I don’t see any reason for a safety concern for that use. If it had a problem the magic smoke would come out and that would be it. A smelly failure. There’s really little potential for a dangerous failure. As Shadowww pointed out, you’ll be converting mains voltage to low voltage / low amperage DC before you get to this device so isolation is not a factor.
Charging li-ions with this thing on the other hand there would require safety considerations. Significantly overcharging a battery could lead to you know what.
Thanks for the double/non aff links 
-Jamie M.
look at the fake nichicon caps!
those vents are teapo!
Doesn’t bother me, can replace them with some decent ones for less than a £ so still good value and even fake ones are highly unlikely to be that bad that they cause any issue here.
Thanks snakebite, that’s good info even if I leave the fakes in place. It does seem kind of weird that they’d be using fakes - seems like it would be cheaper for them to simply purchase Teapo and be done with it.
They probably don’t even know they are fakes, and I imagine that what caps they use changes frequently based on who offers them the best prices, so you may well get a board with different caps on it anyway.
eh, good point
Just got my board in the mail today. Thanks for the heads up on this fine compact power supply. I am looking forward to many moons of blowing stuff up with it. Mainly LED’s. btw got mine from EBay.