| Electronics > Beginners |
| My purchase list for my new lab -- budget $1000+, thoughts? |
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| AnyNameWillDo:
--- Quote from: TomS_ on July 22, 2018, 08:53:33 am ---What kinds ofprojects are you going to work on first? Buy things you specifically need for those projects and those projects alone! Dont try to put together "the perfect" list and then pull the trigger on it all in one go, because honestly, some stuff you dont know you need or want just yet. Components can be sourced easily enough within days at worst from a myriad of suppliers, as well as tools - we really live in the golden age (depending on how you look at it) of hobby electronics now. --- End quote --- A lot of my interest is learning and just becoming more familiar with a wide variety of things -- to gain a stronger command over hardware and how things work, to be able to create whatever suits my needs, to be able to repair things if needed, to be able to modify things, etc. I know how to code a bit so it would be fun to make an app that interfaces with hardware I built myself (for instance maybe an app that turns on/off lights in my apartment, feeds the cats by opening cans, etc). Might be fun to make a radio, a clock, a basic computer, light/LED projects, lights that turn on when it detects nighttime, mechanical keyboards, would be really sweet to make a portable SNES player, power supply, maybe a portable movie projector, maybe a remote-controlled toy with a camera so I can play with my cats with it while I'm out on vacation during downtime, make my own computer mouse, a set of headphones, etc. I'm just spitballing most of these and I don't know how unrealistic they are or not as a beginner so they're more on the backburners until I learn more and get a better sense for what's feasible. But overall I'd say I'm just interested in learning and becoming more useful. :P I'd of course have to start basic and work up way up through a variety of subjects but that's where my head is at, currently, and why I feel the need to get good equipment up front -- because I know that as I pursue projects down the line, odds are I'll be needing good equipment anyway. |
| rstofer:
--- Quote from: AnyNameWillDo on July 22, 2018, 02:30:22 am ---Would it be overkill to get the DP832, assuming it's unlikely I'll ever need to buy another power supply? --- End quote --- Not in my view! There is no way in hell you can build a power supply with the capabilities of the DP832 or any other similarly competent lab supply. As indicated in another reply, some supplies are simply too difficult to build, even for the pros. What you can build, you won't necessarily want to use. OTOH, in a low-bucks operation, any power supply is better than none. The feature I want, a digital display of the current and voltage settings (particularly current limit) simply isn't available in hobby projects. I have never seen a hobby PS with features like a modern lab supply. I want that feature more than I wanted the money it cost. That's the tradeoff! I have used all manner of supplies over decades simply to avoid spending the money on a decent lab type supply. I simply didn't want to spend that much money. Now that I'm retired and spending more time with the hobby, I decided that money wasn't that important, I wanted a reliable supply with features. Here's a link to Dave's uSupply project - a feature rich design. I don't know where the project stands but the Rev C schematic gives you some idea of how much electronics there is inside a modern PS. https://www.eevblog.com/projects/usupply/ Every project you build is going to need a power supply. Ordinarily, you will build a small linear supply right on the PCB and feed the board from a wall wart. You can build this PS at the start of the project or at the end. You can use a lab supply for development or not. I went with the NOT option for decades. I built the project specific supply as the first step on the project. Nothing wrong with that. Or maybe the project uses 5V and you just use a 5V wall wart. Many of my FPGA boards are powered from a 5V wall wart because the underlying hardware runs at 3.3V (and 1.8V). The other day I was building a Z80 kit project. I decided to power it from my DP832 because I could limit the current. Good thing! I had an address conflict and two chips were fighting on the bus. The current limit in the DP832 dropped the voltage down to about 1V, no harm, no foul. I resolved the conflict and the system powered right up. It is clear to me that the adjustable current limit prevented the magic smoke from escaping. Wall warts and simple linear regulators would dump at least 1A (more if the PS had high capability) into that conflict and the results aren't always pleasant. Experimenting: Say you're building a little transistor amplifier, perhaps copying something on one of w2aew's videos. It would be ideal if you could limit the output current to 20 or 30 mA, certainly less than 100 mA, just in case there is a little 'oopsie'. You certainly wouldn't want to dump 3A into a poor defenseless 2N2222 By the way, the w2aew videos are excellent! His scope series is linked at the top of this forum. Given that money doesn't seem to be a limiting factor and the only reason for building a PS is to save money, I don't see the motivation. If building a PS is a right of passage, fine, build one for a specific project and use a real lab supply on the bench. Given a decent bench, such a project might be fun. Check out the last video in Dave's uSupply series. He is using 3 DMMs to instrument a little test. And that's why everybody is recommending more than one DMM. Three is kind of a minimum. I'm a lightweight with 5 handheld meters and two bench meters. Others around here have a good deal more. |
| HB9EVI:
That's a good point: many beginner circuits could have been saved from becoming just magic smoke with a current limiting power supply. Sure, the components don't cost that anymore what the did in my teen days, where every burned transistor was loss of 1-2 bucks; but it's no fun to blow a circuit just because of a rush of current into it |
| AnyNameWillDo:
Thanks, rstofer. And yeah I would likely only make the PSU as a rite-of-passage, not sure if I'd rely on it in the same way as a more serious power supply. Would the Rigol DP832 be a good choice compared to the Siglent SPD3303X? During the Siglent review video by Dave -- -- he mentioned he might do a shootout video between the two but this was in 2015 and I don't think he got around to it. Heavily leaning towards the DP832 as it seems to have everything the Siglent does and from what I can tell has more positive feedback online. |
| HB9EVI:
I recently bought a DP832 and it's doing what it should absolutely well; compared to Siglent I like the fully adjustable voltage on channel 3 e.g. for 1,8V circuits. I couldn't say anything negative about it. |
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