Show your favorite and most used benchtop PSU

[talsit]

Talsit did you look at replacing the fan,  I had the same issue with a lipo charger I have and replaced the fan with a more quality unit and its quiet as a mouse now.

Yeah, I'm thinking about it. Given that I've had it for less than a week, I'm going to wait to see if it grows on me or not...

[maca_404]

I can normally block it out but I was sleeping in the same room and the constant drone made me want to hot glue my ears shut.

[Flávio V]

I don't get it why all(or almost all)actual power supplies have stupid fans when the older ones are fanless(passive) for cheap units i understand, heatsinks are good but good ones are expensive...but in a 250€+ one it should be all passive..

[ZOMGVTEK]

About everything I do requires a lot of current, and voltage regulation is typically not very critical.





This is a blue brick of HP DPS-600PB power supplies. They're perfectly happy running at 50A each, and put out 12.15V a piece. I have since made another one of these for 200V @ 50A, which is good for testing out higher voltage BLDC controllers, at least under light loads. Toss it in series with a sorenson 20-50b and you have a 0-220V DC supply @ 0-50A.

[Thor-Arne]

I don't get it why all(or almost all)actual power supplies have stupid fans when the older ones are fanless(passive) for cheap units i understand, heatsinks are good but good ones are expensive...but in a 250€+ one it should be all passive..

The reason is probably cost and size, a passive cooling solution is expensive and very bulky.

[photovore]

Here is my Kenwood. I bought it in a shop in Guangzhou, China for about USD $150. I love it because in High Resolution mode I can set and read the current consumption in as low as 100µA steps. Its also really small and compact, so it takes up minimal space on the bench.

[Rerouter]

photovore, would that be over the entire current range? or is it only some low current range?

[Bomber18]

I got this Mastech a few years ago and it's served me well.

[moemoe]

The PS-2323A is my favorite (read: my best available) PSU, especially the fixed voltage outputs sometimes come in very handy. The +-12/15Vm +-5V and adjustable output are all floating on their own.

I have this thing twice, one is currently taken apart (sitting on top of the other) and waiting for some replacement parts, as I bought it as defect. And I still have to find out how the PJT controlled thyristor preregulation exactly works (see attached datasheet…). I'm even thinking of pimping it with some sort of µC, because I like the case and there are already some nice transformators in it.

My most used is probably this simple dumb Voltcraft thing, just because I use it for my solder fume fan

[BravoV]

Here is my Kenwood. I bought it in a shop in Guangzhou, China for about USD $150. I love it because in High Resolution mode I can set and read the current consumption in as low as 100µA steps. Its also really small and compact, so it takes up minimal space on the bench.

Wow .. the price is really good for this kind of quality psu, very nice catch ! 

photovore, would that be over the entire current range? or is it only some low current range?

Capable of 20V @ 4A, and as photovore mentioned, one of its handy feature is high resolution adjustment as seen at the meter digits. Just check list of it's impressive features at that price -> Here

[Rerouter]

based on those specs it would imply that accuracy is only for 1A or less

[BravoV]

With those list features at $150 and well known brand, made in Japan (read, not in China), don't you think its quite a bargain ? 

[Rerouter]

yes i do, just i am hoping to do the same, if it could maintain that over its 4A range i would be bloody impressed and start hunting for how its done it, as its not it means its a range switch which is easy to reproduce (copy off the best to make the best )

[knarf.be]

Mine is a simple 0-15v 0-3 Amps with passive cooling, no annoying fan. Costed around € 70 and got it for my 17th bithday 
A big +point is the nice green backlight
I'm also planning on making my own 0-30v 0-2 Amp supply with an arduiduino bootloaded atmega.

Look that awesome passive cooling:

[AndrewS]

My favorite power supply is the Agilent e3610a. It's a great high quality, low noise, fanless power supply. I bought it last year when agilent had that deal that you would get an e1272a DMM for free when you bought a e36xx series power supply.

I like it so much I have been thinking about getting a second one off ebay to go with this one.

[Christopher]

I just got this one yesterday, TTi QPX1200SP  1200Watts:

This is probably the best PSU ive ever used, shame everyone else at work thinks so and always nicks em from me !!

[c4757p]

Mine is a simple 0-15v 0-3 Amps with passive cooling, no annoying fan. Costed around € 70 and got it for my 17th bithday 

Careful with that - I have a similar unit (obviously made by the same people), and it is quite capable of blowing itself up. The cooling is not enough for the power dissipated. Don't draw a large current at low voltages.

[Entropia]

HP 6632B here. It's spot on...

[knarf.be]

Mine is a simple 0-15v 0-3 Amps with passive cooling, no annoying fan. Costed around € 70 and got it for my 17th bithday 

Careful with that - I have a similar unit (obviously made by the same people), and it is quite capable of blowing itself up. The cooling is not enough for the power dissipated. Don't draw a large current at low voltages.

I'm aware of that! In 95% of my use with it, I need under 10W of power. And when charging lead acid battery's I attach a simple computer fan to the back.

[Deckert]

Wow, some really interesting PSUs in this thread.

I got these MCP PSUs with LCDs displays that were dead. Turns out the 9v regulators for the displays did not have heatsinks on them and they all burned out. For one of the PSUs I replaced the regulators with new ones, added heatsinks and now they work perfectly. Both of them have monster toroidal transformers inside:



For the second PSU, I drilled out mounting holes and replaced the LCDs with analogue panel meters:



The panel meters fit in very tightly next to each other: 



And below is the result. I stripped out the series/parallel functionality and replaced the switches with normal toggles to allow for quick and easy current-limit adjustment. It's currently my most-used supply:



I built the one below up from a switch-mode supply that I stripped out of an old network switch. It's very high power on the 5v line and can maintain 20A without any significant heating. I did add a fan into the enclosure just in case. It's very stable, but it tends to be electrically noisy:



And then, finally, the one below is the PSU I have been using since I was 17 years old. I built it in school as a project and it's been serving me well for 25 years now. It's based around the 723, regulates all the way down to 0v and has excellent regulation. Only down side is that it can deliver, but not maintain, 3A for long periods due to a smallish heatsink at the back:



I'm currently building another one, also based around the 723 that uses a toroidal transformer, but will only be 0-15V and 0-3A. Will post some pics when it's all done.

--deckert

[BravoV]

Love the mod, looks really awesome, like the way those meters are neatly laid with perfect fit. 

Have to apologize, imo the later modded one made the one with digital readings looks cheap. 

[Rerouter]

Mine is a simple 0-15v 0-3 Amps with passive cooling, no annoying fan. Costed around € 70 and got it for my 17th bithday 

Careful with that - I have a similar unit (obviously made by the same people), and it is quite capable of blowing itself up. The cooling is not enough for the power dissipated. Don't draw a large current at low voltages.

I'm aware of that! In 95% of my use with it, I need under 10W of power. And when charging lead acid battery's I attach a simple computer fan to the back.

If the pass transistors ever fail on that, replace them with TIP3055's much harder to kill pass elements,

[afho]

This is my little benchtop power supply, an Delta Elektronika ES030-5 (30V, 5A). And even with this spec. the thing is fanless. These power supplys are realy difficult to get.

And what would Dave say: "... take it apart!"

[afho]

I know that this is a switching power supply ... :-). But a quiet nice one. I am currently not at home, but here you can find the spec.sheet.

http://www.delta-elektronika.nl/upload/dts_es150.pdf

I can post some measurements when I am back home.

Kind regards Alex

[afho]

Not a 500MHz, but 200MHz ... 
I paid 199€ for this power supply.

By the way: Nice work Deckert, the power supply looks realy great with the analog panel meters!

Kind regards Alex