Show your favorite and most used benchtop PSU

[linux-works]

long post that i want to quote but only to show i refer to you

This all applies to car PSUs for computers too;
THIS IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE ATX PSU NOT EVEN FOR A CARPUTER!

Spend 3x the amount, get something like this, which is still sweet fuck all and get something that won't cook a few transistors every time you start your car!

I don't have any itx's in my car, but for home use, I've used those (or like it) pico-psu's and they seem fine.  what's the problem with them?

160 seems a bit much.  I've used 80 or 90's before for years at a time (at home) with no issues.  one that I got looked scary for its solder job, but it actually did function ok.

[peter.mitchell]

no fusing, sweet bugger all filtering and regulation, no clamping ect. if your running a mini itx board from a large 12v plug pack, its probably fine, but dealing with automotive supply? nope. can have severe brown out during cranking, so you need boost as well as buck, and there  are a lot of high transients too. basically, the main 12v rail is connected to the input with only a fet in between and the switchers are for the 5v and 3v rails. see this being an issue?

[linux-works]

ok, its about the 12v source, then.  yes, the car environ is more challenging for atx style psu outputs.

for home use, it sounds like you don't have a problem with the pico's.  they sure are convenient and fanless.  I feed mine with 3-5a of current from a 12-19v power brick and that comes from wall current.

[Whales]

Those picos look interesting.  The problem is my 12V source already is an ATX power supply   

You might be able to get away with hooking this directly onto a car's ~12V if it's controlled and smoothed enough (modern gadget-filled cars?), but I'm only familiar with older car designs that blow things up by habit.  Hook a scope on your car and check the input tolerance of your unit before trying it.

[SeanB]

New cars are the same electrically, very noisy. Still has motors and relays, and generally the electronics attached has to survive this. Remember the alternator is still the power source, and they are still controlled with a basic pulse width modulation to produce current, the PWM being voltage control only.

[peter.mitchell]

well considering the float voltage of a "12v" lead acid battery is between 13 and 14v... i'd say it's already a terrible starting point as the 12v rail of the pico psu isn't regulated... this also means you REALLY shouldn't use it with anything other than a "real" 12v source, i mean a 3s/4s lipo are both terrible because a 3s drops to 9v when approaching flat and a 4s is 16.8v when fresh of the charge! and if you bump your 12-19v 3-5a psu and it starts putting out 19v, you better make sure you have paddles in your boat because you're up shit creek.

[Kibi]

I have a new addition to the family.
Yesterday at a certain car boot sale in Luton I managed to pick up this Solartron AS1410.2 Power Supply. It only cost me £5
I believe it to be of 1967 sort of vintage. The AS1410.2 is a 30V 1A unit with external programming and master / slave abilities.
The output voltage is set with the thumb wheels to a resolution of 100mV and the measured output is pretty much spot on. The current limit is set with the two knobs below the meter with a resolution of 10mA.
The meter is unique in the way that it operates. Rather than display the output current directly, it displays the percentage of the set current limit.



I'll have to take the lid off one day when I find some time.

[ajb]

Favorite would be the two Power Designs units, even though they're in need of some TLC.  I got them with the thought of replacing the meter movements with a little LCD and mcu control, but the second I opened them up and saw the beautiful construction inside I lost the will to do anything but a faithful restoration.  The 3650 uses a freaking variac for coarse voltage adjustment!  Unfortunately flaky pots on the TW5005 make it essential to adjust the voltage BEFORE connecting the load, unless the load can tolerate intermittent 50V spikes as the wiper skips across the bad spots in the pots.   

Most used would be a little ATX PSU front end I made a long time ago as a poor recently-former student.  Most of what I work on at home just needs 3.3, 5, or 12VDC, so it's met my needs pretty well.  Regulation on this particular PSU is very clean even with no external load connected.  The back has a panel mounted ATX connector so the power supply itself can live under the bench and fuses for each of the voltage rails.  The knob controls a little LM317 adjustable reg for the channel with the green LED, and the other channels are +3.3V, +5V, and +12V respectively.  The enclosure is an old parallel port switch box with some holes JB Welded over and some new ones drilled. 

Lately I've been wanting to do some more analog stuff at home, so a little dual tracking supply is somewhere on the long list of pending projects.

[monochrome]

Two German power supplies made by Statron Gerätetechnik GmbH. The guys at Statron are pretty cool, any problems or questions about their products and they will send you all schematics and stuff, even for the older models.

Type 2224.1
Single output, 0-24V DC 0-6A.
10 turn voltage pot, 270' current pot.
Cooling: 92mm fan.

Type 5340.1
Dual output, 0-12V DC 0-3A, 3~6~9~12V AC 3A.
270' voltage and current pot.
Cooling: convection.

[jlmoon]

has great regulation.. 

[BravoV]

has great regulation.. 

What psu is that ? Regulation spec ?

[c4757p]

That's a battery.

[Macbeth]

Rigol  DP832



Contrary to Daves review, I actually really like the numeric keypad layout and finger/thumb wheel. It seems a brilliant use of space instead of a seperate numeric keypad in (which could be in the phone style or computer keyboard style opposites) and a separate knob. I've had no problem keying figures in. Maybe because I am from the age of old fashioned telephone dials and Strowger exchanges. lol!

Lovely PSU. I am aware of the very trivial problems with it. Which is more than can be said for any other unknown PSU on the market.

Sadly, mine is the latest 1.09 and so I can't hack it with licence keys (as yet anyway).

[nuno]

My old and my new PSU (guess which is which ).

[d3javu]

My old and my new PSU (guess which is which ).

That second picture is a power supply?  Show us inside 

[PedroDaGr8]

Rigol  DP832



Contrary to Daves review, I actually really like the numeric keypad layout and finger/thumb wheel. It seems a brilliant use of space instead of a seperate numeric keypad in (which could be in the phone style or computer keyboard style opposites) and a separate knob. I've had no problem keying figures in. Maybe because I am from the age of old fashioned telephone dials and Strowger exchanges. lol!

Lovely PSU. I am aware of the very trivial problems with it. Which is more than can be said for any other unknown PSU on the market.

Sadly, mine is the latest 1.09 and so I can't hack it with licence keys (as yet anyway).

Didn't someone just hack it the other day.

[nuno]

That second picture is a power supply?  Show us inside 

Ok, you asked for it !
It was wall plugable power supply with 5 or 6 fixed selectable output voltages. Some pins broke, I opened it, saw there was an LM317 inside and added the pot to have a variable power supply . Put it in the 1st "box" I found (it's a butter box...). I actually used this for a few years .

[Simon123]

Nuno nice case.
Here is mine.
Incredible specs:
12V 0.4A
5V 0.5A
-12V 0.1A
Its actualy TV supply card from 1988.

[nuno]

Cool I guess an LM317 would double your PSU's functionality too

[Macbeth]

Rigol  DP832
Sadly, mine is the latest 1.09 and so I can't hack it with licence keys (as yet anyway).

Didn't someone just hack it the other day.

Thank you for pointing this out! I will try it in the next few minutes! https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/sniffing-the-rigol%27s-internal-i2c-bus/msg480687/#msg480687
Our Gallic friend aurel deserves much respect!

I am going to try the online http://riglol.3owl.com/ server, and thanks beforehand to studio25 for the service!

[Macbeth]

Ok, some DP832 v1.09 PSU hacking porn, LOL!

Before:



After a very long fangled routine to update the bugger:



(Realistically I will never need any of the options other than the accuracy upgrade. I might try the LAN for a bit of fun as I believe it has a webserver available!)

And proof that the accuracy upgrade works, once you "turn it off and on again", that extra digit! I think it's great for circuits that only consume milli-watts. Check it out:



I'm a happy bunny!     

[1xrtt]

Those are mine:

HP6111A - My preferred. Just dial the voltage and that's it. Stability is a plus.
PS503A - Second. Very compact and there's the modularity of the frame.
PM2811 - I think I overdid here. Don't really need it, but got a good deal. Sometime in the  near future I'll play with the GPIB on it.

[Rolo]

As a first post I like to show my bench PSU, it's a Delta Elektronika E030-3. This is a Dutch brand, famous for the quality of their powersupply's. It's old but works perfect.
It delivers 0 to 30 volts up to  3 Amps. Originaly it came with an analog meter that had to be switched to Volts or Amps. Not very practical so I made a digital meter based on an Arduino and a ASC712 current sensor board.

[David Hess]

I have a pair of Tektronix PS503 power supplies and they have become my favorites.  I really like the dual tracking floating outputs.

If I were to design a kit power supply, I would duplicate their feature set although not their exact design.

I am including a photograph I took from when I changed their input capacitors.

[nadona]

@ David Hess
Thank you for showing your favorite set up.

Could you elaborate the interesting things(at least to me) in the pictures?

1) Why two wire connection instead of one from the input cap? Is it factory default or you modified it?
2) What those two resistors do between Lo and Hi terminal of DM502? Why two Rs instead of one?
3) What is the purpose of the caps on the second DM502?

Thank you in advance.