Show your favorite and most used benchtop PSU

[Fortran]

Put one of those electric locks on his door.
If you slip with the probe he can't get out, giving you a few minutes to escape. 

[BravoV]

BravoV: Be prepared for a hefty price-tag.
The aluminium ones are crazy expensive, and the outlets for them isn't all too cheap either.
I think my setup landed on near 500€ total.

Damn, how much that aluminium bar alone ? I really love the design that it has two separated rails, one for the DIN stuffs, and the one at the bottom for the cables. 

I guess I will have to improvise using plain multiboard wood planks + DIN rail and elbow grease eh ?

[Fortran]

Damn, how much that aluminium bar alone ?

The single rail ones are about 100€ per 2.5m lengths.
Dual rails are about 150-180€.
You can probably find cheaper ones, but I'm guessing you'd need to cough up at least 100.

[lmester]

I got some used transformers for free and decided to make a dual adjustable PSU. It started with a pair of the cheap PS kit boards available online. Quite a lot of mods were needed to make them work properly. Several components that came with the board were under rated.  rectifier diodes, pass transistor and shunt were overloaded. Op amps above rated voltage.

 I don't like noisy fans. I added a PIC based temperature controller for the fan.  Also, the transformers have multiple primary taps. I switch them to a higher voltage primary tap when low PS output voltage is selected. This drops the secondary voltage. In commercial PSU's this is done on the secondary side. Cuts power dissipation and keeps the fan off as much as possible.
 
 This is made mostly from parts that I had on hand. It still cost me about $50. Most of that for the panel meters, 10 turn pots and some nice knobs.
 
 Unless you have the expensive parts on hand, it's going to be cheaper just to buy one. Transformers alone will probably get you close to the price of a chinese power supply.
 

[Vgkid]

Nice job on the power supply. Is that a HP5335 besides it.
What is the large black box?

[lmester]

Nice job on the power supply. Is that a HP5335 besides it.
What is the large black box?

I may add a preset voltage switch to the power supply. I often use 3.3V and 5V.  Quicker than twirling knobs.

Yes, A HP5335A to the left. The black box is a wavetek 178 waveform synthesizer. Finished repairs and calibration on it a week or so ago. Now I need to find a place for it.

Here is a post with some pics of it: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/repairing-a-free-wavetek-178-waveform-synthesizer/msg1068993/#msg1068993

 I should see if there is a thread on here for "Show us your favorite huge heavy boat anchor instrument".  The power supply is nearly as heavy as the wavetek. Linear power supplies are quiet (low noise). I'm very noisy (Groaning & grunting) when I need to lift it   

[djos]

Here's my Homebrew PoS made from a PC power supply:

Edit: Argh picture trouble



Had some brain fade originally and had to move the ground terminal.



I do intend to build a better one at some point which has fully adjustable current & voltage with a purty digital display.

[nanofrog]

Unless you have the expensive parts on hand, it's going to be cheaper just to buy one. Transformers alone will probably get you close to the price of a chinese power supply.

Or better yet, a quality used PSU from eBay. 

Granted, this is far more of a challenge outside of the US, but it's not impossible based on what I've seen.

[BFX]

Also second HP 6632B upgraded to front terminals
Is little pity that I haven't original HP banana terminals but it's enough.

Finally I found good and looks like original terminals for my HPs
Not this crappy Chinese from ebay:)
http://www.tme.eu/en/katalog/#search=BS-244MN&cleanParameters=1

[mmagin]

I never liked that 'black for ground, red for everything else' on that era of HP supplies.  On the supply I had to repair I just replaced all three with some good pomona binding posts, in red, black, and green.

[rrinker]

 I guess they were past that by the 3610 days? My HP branded 3610 has red, black, and green for the earth. Unless a prior owner changed them, but they look the same age as the rest of the case.

[rdl]

I guess they were past that by the 3610 days? My HP branded 3610 has red, black, and green for the earth. Unless a prior owner changed them, but they look the same age as the rest of the case.

It was a change made during production. It happened sometime before the name change from Hewlett Packard to Agilent. There were other cosmetic changes made as you can see. You can find HP branded ones with the three color binding posts and the lighter color scheme, but they're not all that common.

[rrinker]

 Actually, mine IS the lighter color like the Agilent one, but with an HP brand. I'll have to nab a picture. The spacing of the model number and specification line is in between those two - the "0-8V" part starts on the middle of my display, not over by the Amps label like the HP one and not so far to the left as the Agilent one.

[Radio Tech]

This is probably my most used PSU at the time. It is a Harrison Laboratories 6263A.
0-18 volts
0-10 amps.
Made in the early 60's and still works like a charm.

[rdl]

I prefer the later styling as seen on Agilent 3610 (and other) power supplies but for some reason want one with the Hewlett Packard name on it. I check ebay off and on, but haven't found a good one at the right price. It's possible they only made them that way for one model year.

[bitseeker]

Finally I found good and looks like original terminals for my HPs
Not this crappy Chinese from ebay:)

Yes! Those look like the right ones, in the newer-generation light gray.
Upon closer inspection of the zoomed-in image on TME's site, there are subtle differences from the genuine ones, but it's very close. Good find.

I wonder who makes them. The only other place I could find them is Amazon France.

[rdl]

You can find the "gray with colored trim rings" type binding posts on ebay. They are hard to filter because there doesn't seem to be a standard way of describing them. I have bought from a couple of different sellers and the items received appear to be identical. The quality is fine. The metal post is not cross-drilled. The gray color I received is only close*. The lightness is similar to the Agilent, but is of a slightly browner shade, more like the HP color. If you are really picky about the color match, you would probably want to buy a matched set from Keysight. The last time I checked was about 2 years ago, and the cost was nearly $50 for a set of three.

* point being, you are not likely to get a perfect match as the color probably varies a lot from batch to batch.

[bitseeker]

The ones on eBay that aren't cross-drilled have a very large, donut-like colored ring, quite different from the thinner, hard-edged HP one. However, it would be the next in line for similarity after the TME ones. So far, TME has the best reproduction as far as ring color & size, fluting on the post, and coving on the base.

In the past, I too saw the binding posts for sale on Keysight's Find a Part. However, when I checked last night they were no longer listed, not even as NFTS.

[BU508A]

Hi,

here are two of my PSU:

- a Rohde & Schwarz NGB 70 / 5 --- 0 ... 70V and 0 ... 5A

- from the famous german electronic magazine elrad a dual power supply --- 0 ... +50V and 2,5A & 0 ... -50V and 2,5A
  elrad November 1985
  Schematics can be found here: https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/183517
  The PCB was designed by myself last year, because my first attempt was really ugly  (ok, this was back in 1989)

[bitseeker]

That Elrad is mighty tidy inside. Nice job!

[joetorelli]

Here is a Power Supply I use for my Arduino Projects.
It is a 24v 5a MeanWell and two POWER SUPPLY MODULE M2L8 from ebay.
I stuffed it into an old case. Total cost was under $70.
Fits perfectly under my Fluke 45!

[JustSquareEnough]

Unless you have the expensive parts on hand, it's going to be cheaper just to buy one. Transformers alone will probably get you close to the price of a chinese power supply.

nice job on this.  i do agree on your statement though its definitely not cheaper to build I could have bought at least one used HP off ebay by now with what Ive spent on parts for my PSU.  but I'm building it as a project to learn so from that aspect I think its worth it I am learning a lot.

[rrinker]

Here is a Power Supply I use for my Arduino Projects.
It is a 24v 5a MeanWell and two POWER SUPPLY MODULE M2L8 from ebay.
I stuffed it into an old case. Total cost was under $70.
Fits perfectly under my Fluke 45!

 Hmm, now that I should duplicate - since I too have a Fluke 45 I could slide a power supply under.

[boffin]

A radio shack 12v 'Battery Eliminator' with a chinese CV/CC module in it.  Hard to end up with a smaller package on your desktop and still have CV/CC, although I doubt that without better cooling its ability to provide more than about an amp.

[grifftech]

http://griffinsworkshop.blogspot.com/2016/12/homemade-bench-power-supply.html multi fixed rail, made it myself, added power switch after blog post