Hi. check this one out. It's a random teardown item from the bunker and it's Electric Fence Controller. It's the MBT 200.

Look at these gigantic screw terminals on here and it's actually an Australian unit. Check it out. Manufactured by Packed In Technologies, they are still around and this is what they do. They manufacture electric fence controllers, so I've contacted them to see if I can get a U schematic I'll see if it turns up in time both time I've finished this video Anyway, it's a really old model that I can't find any info on at all.

It's the MBT 200 type of D whatever that is. input 16 volts AC or 12 volts DC output into 100 ohm load 12 joules so doesn't tell you how many kilovolts it does, but it's got to kill a volt display on it AC and DC inputs and a switch and that's about it. and well. I don't know anything about electric fence controllers, so let's crack it open and see what's inside.

Lots of big caps, no doubt. All right. Six screws on here and that trainee Wow that's enormous. Look at those caps.

Oh yeah, that's where all the jewels are being stored. Oh look at this - troll. Yeah, you Bloody Rippa. Unbelievable.

What's that? 30 Mike please II do con caps 30 Mike 900 volts DC each Wow. Pulse grade capacitor made in Australia Ah Bloody Beauty yeah Lizzie I used to work at GC Marconi yet they were plays I think GC Marconi Bought out pleasure and now the GC Marconi technology park at Meadowbank is now just as only a few buildings left and there's a road called Faraday Road left and that's it. And it's all like housing developer apartment development complexes. Now it's really quite sad.

Anyway, that was a they had their own ceramic hybrid manufacturing facility and everything anyway. I Don't think they made that. they didn't make the caps there I'm not sure where they made, but somewhere in Australia Oh Check it out. that's a size that transformer in there Wow And here's all the output caps: Wow Check that out! I've got a separate riser board for that.

So I got a bunch of big power resistors and yes, I can poke around. It's been turned off forever. It's just been sitting in the bunker so I'm sure it's completely discharged. They'd be amazing caps if they weren't so I would assume they'd be in series I would yes to get the to get the voltage requirement I'm not sure how many kilovolts this suckers gonna be, but Oh Anyway, there we go.

There's different models. This is the MBT 200. so NBT 50 and Bt 50 and Bt 80. maybe I can get some info on the BTS so that's actually 2004 vintage down there.

and if you go to the website which are linking down below, they've actually got some amazing repair guides for these things like a PDF with all the instructions on how to troubleshoot and repair these things. Unfortunately, they don't have this particular model and they don't have a schematic in the ones that I saw. But yeah, it really is quite nice. So I really so do seem to support these.

And they do actually have an eBay store where they sell replacement capacitors the same xxx Mike nine hundred volts but not the pleasant ones anymore cuz I'm pretty sure you can't They're not making these anymore in Strayer and you can't buy them, but exactly the same rating from Hong Kong or HK Capacitor I Assume it's Hong Kong capacitor. They manufacture a range of these same ones so they still sell replacement caps in these things. So anyway, yeah these are these are fantastic. Job is they'll be flame proof and they'll be.

You know they're designed for like high pulses because Electric fence controllers I believe although there's many different types, is lethal, non-lethal and there's ones that go that go from like giving you a warning zap to ones that then on the second zap will kill you. You know they're designed for like you know, prisons and military installations and stuff like that. But yeah, this is probably just an agricultural model. So you know to stop animals getting through electric fences on the farm.

so it's probably not lethal, but you wouldn't wanna touch it. Um, you know, 12 joules? Oh geez, you'll know you're alive if you get hit with that. Let's that's for sure. So it looks like a pretty dumb unit.

There's no smarts in here. um I'd say that the killer volt meter is just like a panel meter type thing because I don't see any micro controller unless you know something's on the other side. Maybe we can take the board out and flip it over, but I wouldn't expect anything on the other side. I think we've just got a primary side our storage and switching here.

so we've got three big probably MOSFETs in there and that switches this huge big custom transformer here and to the secondary has got any feedback. I would say that this big resistor here oh that's my D Oh - what's in there? Whoa. What is that? It's got a cover on it. Oh there's two leads on each side.

Oh Oh Oh - it's an opto isn't It's an opto coupler is it? Anyway, these are usually are like post DC type things I'm sure there's many different US standards and and stuff like that for them, but yeah I believe it's like a post DC type thing so it doesn't give you like and continuous direct DC shock. it will actually pulse. That's why you need our pulse grade our capacitors, input and output - of course. But yeah, I'd say it's got some sort of feedback to regulate that.

And what's that resistor up there doing is that a bleed resistor is at a feedback job' If you have a little down in there it says HTF B that would be high tension feedback so that's either feeding back from the secondary side. B Given its location, it doesn't seem to be, so maybe there's like a intermediate step up there and then before it gets to the big trainee. perhaps? And that's what they mean. Well, there you go.

I Spoke too soon. there's your microcontroller down there. All the Pic fanboys go. Why one? is that a pick 16 if series? given the vintage of this sucker and that's just driving the LCD There is some extra surface mount chippies under there.

they're just. they would just be LCD drivers because the Pic wouldn't have direct LCD drivers and there's not enough pins anyway. So yeah, so it's probably a little Op-amp in there. Couldn't be bothered.

Check in. We've got some leads and no surprises for seeing big cutouts between the capacitors here. Although they don't extend all the way out here, I would have extended those out a bit further than that. That's a bit.

it's a bit tighter. Um, look, they've extended it out this side, but they haven't extended out that side. Is this an afterthought? They've got a mob on the straight-across that kept there. So yeah, maybe they don't come.

A guts are somehow in the design and they've added that as an afterthought because otherwise you'd put that directly on the PCB And then they got another switching on its back on the bottom side, which is unusual. Don't know why you wouldn't have, you know, laid that out on top sides or a layout issue really. But yep, all three of those caps are in parallel. so yeah, no touchy, you know, just check to see if the negative of these caps is ground referenced.

So yep, course it is. Now this is interesting. This that was the big power resistor we saw on the top, and sure enough, it's between the positive and the negative output like this. but it goes through that little opto sensory type things component across.

There is just a reverse biased diode that might just be a dropper resistor that doesn't actually have to be a load, otherwise it to be current sense in the load. So I'd say more likely it's just voltage sensing and that's just a dropper for whatever the heck part this is. Just wanted to show your fork a close up of these pleasu con caps cuz yeah, you rarely see those and you won't see them anymore cuz I'm pretty sure they don't make them. ha.

I Figured this out. It's obvious it is an opto coupler and there's nothing in the middle squishy, squishy that to lead and that's a photo trainee. so they just roll in their own optocoupler. they're just presumably they couldn't find one with enough withstanding voltage.

Fair enough, it's a cheap way to do it, so that right there is a one Meg LED Drop a resistive. You ever seen a one mega LED dropper as this stuff. Hands up. I'm sure there's not many of you, so if you do the calculation for that, of course, ignoring the little piddly diode drop Compared to a thousand volts, you know you just do rules of thumb in engineering, then that's one milliamp per kilovolt.

So a typical lead might be 20 milliamps max for example. Then you know zero to twenty kilovolts. That makes sense, doesn't mean it's gonna go out to twenty kilovolts I Don't think it does. I think these only go up to, you know, several kilovolts.

maybe five tops or something like that. Perhaps could go higher. But yeah, that makes sense. Just one milliamp per kilowatt? Easy.

So you would just get a proportional current in the phototransistor on the other side of that optocoupler. Roughly, if you power 20 aficionados. there you go. but the one on the left there, the friend of Jake the pig suddenly got two legs.

In fact, both of those other parts down in there there are diode ease I ain't So obviously we've got a first stage us which are here is our switching. There's our switching transformer and that would be generating. Well, these are nine hundred volt caps are all in parallel. so you know, be generating.

you know, seven, eight hundred volts. Something like that, you wouldn't be pushing it right to the 900 of course. and then that. then you'd use the this other switching over here to take the energy from these caps and drive your transformer to get switching again to a boost it to your high output voltage.

I Actually, rather like this our spade lug arrangement like this: PCB mount Spade lugs and they just go in like that. That's a neat way to do a vertical rise, a bore. But anyway, and there you go. We've got the positive and negative outputs and we've got a common as well.

and we've got to be I don't know that varies 56r and 100. Ah, there you go. But yep. I'm guessing all these cups are in series And yep, I am right? Yep, check it out.

There we go one there. Series Series Series Series series. So we got six cups in series. How many volts each? That'll tell us our maximum output.

So if you don't know the maximum output voltage of a design like this, you can just calculate it well. These are two hundred and fifty volts captain and 250 volts each. They wouldn't be running them at 250 volts. So at let's to say 206 times 200 1,200 volts.

So 12 times 200, that'd make our 2,400 volts with an absolute max our voltage rating of 3000 volts. So yeah, it's not gonna be over 3,000 This is good because I Have an old analog meter. Know now there's digital rubbish. Have an old analog meter that measures up to five kilovolt.

Self-repair This thing on I'll be able to measure that directly with my analog meter. Beauty. And in case you're wondering, those B power resistors. Here's the positive input coming from the transformer and it goes through a series resistor and then through the series caps like that.

So those caps are actually in series and then they are just half tap in the capacitance network here to give you your common. And some people might be wondering, well, why don't they put our slots in a board like this? Well, you can of course are to prevent creepage which is across your board. Or like this, if you get moisture contamination or something like that across your board, you can certainly do that. But because these are only 250 volts rate at each, Essentially, there's only 250 volts between there and there, and that's plenty of creepage clearance for 250 volts.

DC So when you're welcome all in series I you could argue like there's more across there and stuff like that. So you could argue they could should be maybe a slot down there or something like that. Yeah, it obviously does the job. Yeah.

I Think if you go, get your chart out and work out your clearances, it's it should be enough. And then there's three of those moles in series or six of them in series across the entire positive negative output. Again, because they didn't have the individual rate at once I Guess. And these two unpopulated components marked here? Yes, they would be spark gaps.

So yeah, they just haven't populated in the spark gap. So I've been guessing. You know they didn't want both the moths and the spark gap. So either/or so I do actually like this.

front terminal arrangement really is quite good in that vertical board with the Spade lugs and these go through the holes on the PCB Like that that is. That's really quite neat solution. All right, I'm gonna power this thing up I Have no idea if it works I don't It literally came from the dumpster. so I don't know what the deal is I'm gonna pair it with my micro supply.

and as I've said many times before, anything over 12 volts DC scares the out of me. So I'm not gonna be anywhere near this sucker. So let me move this away a bit further. So here we go.

Our 12 volts, one amp, turn it on and oh, it works. It works. There's digits as digits on there kilovolts load factor. Let's uh, there's a - - - let me I'm destroying fourteen milliamps that's quiescent current.

Obviously, learning dies out always. So that's a power on test I guess. So let's switch it on nothing. Maybe it was already on nothing.

Either way, you don't need a load on it, but I think and there's no Energizer light on there or anything. so not what what? what? wha? sorry. Decided to hook it up to my beefier lab supply here and 1.5 amp current limit. which my little micro supply can't do it.

and we do get a brief output here. What's this? overload? and then energizer? Okay, briefly, but nah, it's only. it's only rated for 1.1 amps. so maybe there's like some input pulse something like that I might leave at the hemp.

Was briefly thinking and charged up slowly, but like it's 10 milliamps. This is quiescent stuff. It's not. It's not in any energy.

there's no jewels gone in those gorgeous Ozzie caps. Alright, well, let's try it with a load. Got this in the previous mailbag. coincidentally I don't know.

It's a voltage rating and does have exposed terms turns there because it's an adjustable power resistor. but she'll be right. that's 1k. This thing's are rated for lower loads than that.

So anyway, um, let's give it a bill. Note: Exactly the same thing as before: I Don't know if you saw that the Energizer LED does briefly. come on, but that's it. I mean it's not going into overload or anything, just quiescent current.

So I've had a bit of a little quick poke around in here, but I can't see anything obvious. now. One of the things is the the switch on the side. here.

This is actually connected into a like a single inline header. there. is that the right one? I don't know. it is labeled T2, whatever the heck that means so.

but unfortunately, like without a manual and without a schematic and the flying a bit blind. sure I could you know start reverse engineering this or having an educated poke around? But the good thing is is that patent claim that they will supply the schematics. they actually tell you this on the website, end on the in the actual like troubleshooting documentation as well. So I have emailed them but like it's Christmas and New Year's time so probably like completely shut down.

so rather than spend my time actually you know doing this I'll wait until I come back and if you're watching this I am actually on walkabout somewhere I'm so I'm not in the lab so I won't be back until towards a late January So hopefully by then though, be back and they can send us a schematic and maybe maybe an operational manual for this things so he might get lucky and if they don't come through then we can always do a reverse engineering video. So if you want to see a reverse engineer of the circuit of this thing then mention it in the comments down below and give it a thumbs up. to the more thumbs up. I Get the attempted I will be to do a follow-up video for this one.

This was supposed to be just a teardown so I'll call it quits there and I won't attempt to repair this thing and/or if there's anything wrong with it. maybe it's just a you know, a peb kak I don't know how to use this thing. Maybe someone's fiddled around with it I don't know and it's got not for sale I written on the back of it. so I'm not sure if this is and given that I can't find any info on it.

Maybe it's a could even be like an unreleased or limited release product or or something like that. but it does have you know, prop, a, serial number and everything up there. So yeah, not sure what the deal is. but anyway, I'm packed and do claim to supply the schematics and this is, well, 16 years old.

Geez, you know, 2004 That was yesterday and what's 2020 Now by the time you're watching this? Geez. Anyway, yeah, so I feel like that turnout of this Ozzie designed and manufactured unit? Absolutely brilliant. Our pledge caps let us know in the comments down below if you've used pledge caps and when they actually stopped me I presume they stopped making them. Another thing, they make them anymore.

Please correct me if I'm wrong and this custom trainee up here is that meeting stronger too? Maybe. Anyway, Um, yeah. Ripa So anyway, they do have lots of more advanced models now, but yeah, if they come through the schematic then we can have a go if not or reverse engineer. maybe.

I Hope you enjoyed it. Catch you next time.