What is SMPS?

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SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supply) is an electrical device that provides power to electronic components and circuits. Most electronic devices used in the home or office require low power DC voltages. This led to the development of switched mode power supply (SMPS).

This device converts from high voltage AC to low voltage DC. SMPS supplies power to various system components of a computer such as motherboards and device drives. The main components of SMPS are Power Connectors and Power Supply. Power connectors provide DC voltage to all system components and Power Supply Fan is used to keep the SMPS cool.

What is SMPS? (What is SMPS)

Switched Mode Power Supply is an electrical device that supplies power to all devices in the computer such as registers or capacitors by efficiently converting power from AC to DC. After knowing what SMPS is, let’s know about its type.

Types of SMPS

Following are the different types of SMPS:

  1. D.C. to D.C. Converter
  2. Forward converter
  3. Flyback Converter
  4. Self-Oscillating Flyback Converter
  1. DC to DC Converter: This is a special type of SMPS converter that passes high DC voltage through the primary coiling of the Step Down Transformer which is 50 Hz and then it is sent as the output voltage from the second part of it. With the help of this, we control the voltage.
  2. Forward Converter: This is also a kind of SMPS converter that transmits current through a choke, when the transistor works or not, the diode transmits the power when the transistor stops completely. . Thus, power flows in the load during both periods but the choke keeps the power stored. The choke stores energy during the ON period and sends some energy to the Output Load.
  3. Flyback Converter: In this SMPS converter, the inductor stores magnetic field energy when the switch is on when the power output is empty in the voltage circuit, its function is to control the Duty Cycle Output voltage.
  4. Self-Oscillating Flyback Converter: This is the simplest converter based on the principle of flyback. During the conduction time, the switching transistor linearly rises as a slope that is Vin / Lp. After knowing what is SMPS and its type, let us know in detail about the connectors of SMPS.

Different Connectors of SMPS

SMPS supplies power to various components of a computer system such as motherboards, hard disk drives, and other components using power connectors, the power connector is an electrical connector used to carry DC voltage. There are 5 types of connectors:

  • ATX Power Connectors: This is a 20 pin connector out of which 6 types of Voltas are coming out. We use ATX to supply power to the motherboard. The color of the wire on the pin indicates its corresponding voltage.
  • 24 Pin SMPS Connectors: This 24 pin SMPS connector is made with ATX style of power connectors. This connector is used to provide power supply to the motherboard. Therefore, it is known as PC main power connector 24 pin SMPS connector has 4 additional pins which take different voltage levels than 20 pin connector. Pin numbers 11, 12 and 23 are +12 V, +3.3 V, +5 V and pin number 24 are used as ground.
  • Standard Peripheral Power Connectors (Molex): Disk drive power connectors use 4 wire connectors which are commonly called Molex connectors. Hard disk drives use CD / DVD drive Molex connectors. The color of the pin wires reflects their respective voltages.
  • SATA Power Connectors: SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is used to connect a computer’s hard disk drive, CD / DVD drive and supply power through a power connector. It is a 15-pin connector. A large number of pins are used for three different voltages — 3.3 V, 5 V, and 12 V. Each voltage is collected by three pins and has 6 pins for ground.
  • PCI-E 6 Pin Connectors: PCI-e cables are used to provide additional 12-volt power to the PCI Express motherboard slots. These are sometimes called PCI Express Cable or PEG (PCI Express Graphics) cable.

There are mainly two types of power supply:

  1. AT Power Supply: Nowadays the use of AT Power Supply is very less or not equal, they have 2, 6-6 pin connectors through which we connect the motherboard.
  2. ATX Power Supply: Nowadays we use ATX Power Supply these have 20 pin connectors and one connector is 4 pin square through which we connect the motherboard. After knowing what is SMPS and its various types of connectors, let us know about the output voltage of SMPS.

Output Voltage of SMPS

Different components of a computer require different voltages. Hence SMPS provides different amounts of power supply. Following are the different types of voltages provided by SMPS:

  • Blue -> -12 V
  • White -> -5 V
  • Black -> 0 V
  • Orange -> +3.3 V
  • Red -> +5
  • Yellow -> +12 V

Advantages and Disadvantages of SMPS

The biggest advantage of SMPS is that it is small and light but not big and full like a transformer.
It emits much less heat than transformers, but it also depends on its efficiency.
The biggest disadvantage of SMPS is that its functioning is better complicated which is very difficult to understand. If SMPS is ever bad, then we can buy new SMPS at the cost of making it, with a warranty of one year.
SMPS also affects our health because it produces high-frequency and due to high frequency energy it can also cause harmonic distortion.

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