| Electronics > Beginners |
| Power supply advice please (I live in the UK) |
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| Terry01:
--- Quote from: bd139 on December 07, 2018, 08:53:35 am ---I wouldn’t buy any cheap supplies when you can get a decent TTi one here in the UK for not much more and sometimes less money! Look out for Thurlby / TTi PL320/330 units on eBay. Occasionally they turn up for £30-40 or at hamfests for £20-40. They were £300-400 a piece new. I paid £40 each for mine from eBay with delivery. They are professional supplies, have service manuals available and are pretty much everything proof and have no fan. I wouldn’t buy an analogue oscilloscope now. Even the newest ones are prone to packing in. I spent a fair amount of time fixing dead ones and it’s a pain if you are only just starting out. --- End quote --- I would agree with that. I am also relatively new to electronics too. I got an analogue scope first then a digital one a couple months later and my analogue scope is still living under the bed, where I use my digital scope 99.9% of the time. I would also advise to just get digital. You can get a decent 2nd hand Rigol or whatever quite cheap, even £250 will get you a nice one. |
| spec:
--- Quote from: bd139 on December 07, 2018, 08:53:35 am ---I wouldn’t buy any cheap supplies when you can get a decent TTi one here in the UK for not much more and sometimes less money! --- End quote --- There is innuendo in what you say. If you buy wisely, cheap (value for money) does not mean not decent. It is also important to keep things in perspective. A lab PSU, after all is said and done, needs to provide stable volts and controllable amps. For home work it does not need, profiles, IEEE program interface or to make coffee. In fact, in the interests of simplicity, it is better if it does not. --- Quote from: bd139 on December 07, 2018, 08:53:35 am ---Look out for Thurlby / TTi PL320/330 units on eBay. Occasionally they turn up for £30-40 or at hamfests for £20-40. They were £300-400 a piece new. I paid £40 each for mine from eBay with delivery. They are professional supplies, have service manuals available and are pretty much everything proof and have no fan. --- End quote --- AFAIK that PSU is 32V at 3A whereas the PSU I recommended is 0V to 30V at 0A to 10A. Also if that Thurlby unit goes wrong, it will be difficult and costly to fix. BTW, I am not a big fan of Thurlby PSUs. We had a load of them at work and they were nothing but trouble. I know of quite a few people who have needlessly bought fancy equipment which goes wrong and after vain attempts to fix it, the equipment is just left to rot. The other thing is that, with a couple of mouse clicks, you could have a very serviceable PSU to use within a couple of days, and if you need another, just do the same thing again. And you would have a PSU that would be more than adequate for home electronics work. Not that long ago that ebay lab PSU would have been the most wonderful PSU imaginable, certainly much better than the lab PSUs we had at work. Buying second hand takes time and is a big risk, especially for a newbee, and going to fests also takes time. --- Quote from: bd139 on December 07, 2018, 08:53:35 am ---I wouldn’t buy an analogue oscilloscope now. Even the newest ones are prone to packing in. I spent a fair amount of time fixing dead ones and it’s a pain if you are only just starting out. --- End quote --- That may be your experience, but it is most probably because you have been buying the wrong scopes. If you get a decent, simple scope, they last for years without any problems. BTW, you can get plenty of problems with digital scopes. :) On the subject of digital (storage) versus analog (real time) scopes for a beginners, that is a difficult call. Personally, I would advise an analog scope, because you get much closer to seeing what the electrons are actually doing when they are doing it. There is also a big debate about bandwidth. Some people argue that bandwidth does not matter. I take the opposite view and would say that the minimum bandwidth scope that you should get is 10MHz and ideally 100Mz. With a digital scope and a low bandwidth analogue scope you can loose a lot of the waveform which may be why a particular circuit is not working. A good example is high frequency ringing at a MOSFET gate or ground bounce on a logic signal which may be causing erroneous clocking. |
| Terry01:
Just read back and see the OP already has a Hantek digital scope. My bad....sorry! I had a similar Hantek scope before I got my Rigol and to be honest the Hantek never caused me any problems and did everything I needed it to. It was a great very simple wee scope to learn on and if I am honest the extra features on the Rigol I have now are just a luxury, I didn't "need" them it's just nice to have them. One thing is for sure, you'll get lots of opinions from lots of people with plenty experience and knowledge so you'll have the best chance of getting the best stuff for you. |
| jpb:
I would second the recommendation for TTi supplies (second hand). I have three supplies, and Agilent an Hameg and a TTi (which I bought first) but it is the TTi that I use all the time. I note that some people report trouble with TTi supplies and others that they never go wrong - my experience has been the latter. They have been around a long time and probably the more recent supplies are better than the older ones. I'd also say to get a linear supply rather than switched mode. For electronics you aren't likely to need a huge amount of current so 3A is fine and similarly you probably won't need to go above 30V (probably most circuits will be under 20V though some things like a 24V supply). Linear are simple and low noise and the low efficiency doesn't matter (in my view) in a bench supply. |
| jc101:
--- Quote from: HobGoblyn on December 06, 2018, 10:34:05 pm --- I do need a power supply, Dave suggests getting a kit, but I can't find any on the UK. When looking at pre-built ones, I do see a lot of similar looking (presumed made by same company and rebadged) power supplies on ebay/amazon. Was thinking about something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01E7OGHJM/?coliid=II5WG08YUD1N2&colid=L5N3DCOD52K1&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it But reviews on things like power supplies and soldering stations all seem very mixed, or numerous so called different sites all recomending exactly the same top 10 (suspect they are fake review sites). Thoughts on a power supply for a beginner, is the one I selected suitable? Many thanks Hob --- End quote --- If your near Cambridge I have a spare Maplin N27GG PSU "80W Constant Power Switching Mode Power Supply" (you'd have to google the code for specs etc.). All complete in it's original box. I've been meaning to either put it up here or on eBay for ages but not got round to it. Pretty sure it's been kicking around here for a while and surfaced when hunting through boxes for something else. Now I keep moving the box around in my never ending game of office space tetris. |
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