Power supplies MTBF and their life span

Along with technical process,more and more electronic products come into our daily life,from initial dial telephone and desktop PC,radio and Crt,to nowadays Cell phones and tablets,smart Robots and DRONE,we depend on these equipments more and more.
In most of time,these electronic equipments can make our work and life more convenient,but when these equipments stop working suddenly,we will feel depressed and want to know its relialility.

In this article we will talk about the reliability level which can be described by interval between two failures which is called MTBF.
What is MTBF?
Mean time between failures (MTBF) is the predicted elapsed time between inherent failures of a mechanical or electronic system, during normal system operation. MTBF can be calculated as the arithmetic mean (average) time between failures of a system. The term is used for repairable systems, while mean time to failure (MTTF) denotes the expected time to failure for a non-repairable system.
 

The definition of MTBF depends on the definition of what is considered a failure. For complex, repairable systems, failures are considered to be those out of design conditions which place the system out of service and into a state for repair. Failures which occur that can be left or maintained in an unrepaired condition, and do not place the system out of service, are not considered failures under this definition.In addition, units that are taken down for routine scheduled maintenance or inventory control are not considered within the definition of failure.The higher the MTBF, the longer a system is likely to work before failing.
 

Mean time between failures (MTBF) describes the expected time between two failures for a repairable system. For example, three identical systems starting to function properly at time 0 are working until all of them fail. The first system fails after 100 hours, the second after 120 hours and the third after 130 hours. The MTBF of the systems is the average of the three failure times, which is 116.667 hours. If the systems were non-repairable, then their MTTF would be 116.667 hours.

In general, MTBF is the "up-time" between two failure states of a repairable system during operation as outlined here:

For each observation, the "down time" is the instantaneous time it went down, which is after (i.e. greater than) the moment it went up, the "up time". The difference ("down time" minus "up time") is the amount of time it was operating between these two events.

By referring to the figure above, the MTBF of a component is the sum of the lengths of the operational periods divided by the number of observed failures:

In a similar manner, mean down time (MDT) can be defined as

How to improve power supplies' MTBF?
As we know power supplies consist of many components,so the components life span can affect the power supplies MTBF significantly,here we take some critical components out to find out the imporvement way:
1,Chips : The chips' reliability and rated output power are critical points that make the power supplies work smoothly.So Shenzhen Top Power Co., Ltd. always selects top brand chips and leaves some margin for chips working power limitation rated on nameplate output power,it can extend chips life span.
2,  Electrolytic capacitor: It is the sole component which has liquid electrolyte,when liquid electrolyte evaporates out,the power supplies won't work any more,so Shenzhen Top Power Co., Ltd. always use long life span capacitor to reduce the failure rate.
3, MOSFET : The MOSFET value decides the output power it can drive,so appropriate value MOSFET can keep power supplies work without overload.Considering this,Shenzhen Top Power Co., Ltd. always use higher value MOSFET than what should be used,so the life span can be longer.
There are also Schottky,transformer,inductor etc. which affect the power supplies' MTBF too.

Apart from Components factors,the workmanship like soldering is also one of the factors.

Actually power supplies working circumstances including temperature and humidity also play an important role,we advise to use power supplies in dry and normal temperature places

If you need high reliability power supplies,please contact us anytime.