Products > Test Equipment
Keysight New instruments
wizard69:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on March 09, 2021, 01:01:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: NANDBlog on March 09, 2021, 08:29:12 am ---[...] A power supply is not a charger.
--- End quote ---
Once you go down this road, you can equally argue "A power supply is not a diode tester", "A power supply is not a LED driver", "A power supply is not a TEK module driver", and any other specific thing you are doing with it?
I have always viewed a lab power supply as a general purpose source of power with variable voltage and variable current - what I do with that voltage and current is surely up to me?
--- End quote ---
Sure it is up to you but at the same time many power supplies are not designed for such usage. On the flip side special purpose power supplies for battery charging exist and are widely available. Considering that battery chagrining leads to fire more often that is should, making use of a supply designed for such usage is a wise move.
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: wizard69 on March 10, 2021, 03:26:03 am ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on March 09, 2021, 01:01:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: NANDBlog on March 09, 2021, 08:29:12 am ---[...] A power supply is not a charger.
--- End quote ---
Once you go down this road, you can equally argue "A power supply is not a diode tester", "A power supply is not a LED driver", "A power supply is not a TEK module driver", and any other specific thing you are doing with it?
I have always viewed a lab power supply as a general purpose source of power with variable voltage and variable current - what I do with that voltage and current is surely up to me?
--- End quote ---
Sure it is up to you but at the same time many power supplies are not designed for such usage. On the flip side special purpose power supplies for battery charging exist and are widely available. Considering that battery chagrining leads to fire more often that is should, making use of a supply designed for such usage is a wise move.
--- End quote ---
It is best to understand the limitations of your power supply - RTFM - almost no matter what you use it for, to avoid nasty surprises.
It is always "technically best" to use specific devices, but it may not be "practically best" - if you only charge a particular battery once a year that doesn't fit in your regular AA charger, you are not being totally crazy by using the tools you already have, instead of burning the planet resources on stuff that will hardly ever get used, right?
wizard69:
--- Quote from: ResistorRob on March 10, 2021, 03:19:24 am ---Nobody has posted the teaser video?
I really like the interconnectivity between instruments and available apps for each instrument.
--- End quote ---
Interesting video but not enough info! I could use the scope offering, maybe even some of the other instruments.
As for apps, if HPAK is just doing Windows I'm not going to be all that happy.
Berni:
--- Quote from: wizard69 on March 10, 2021, 03:26:03 am ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on March 09, 2021, 01:01:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: NANDBlog on March 09, 2021, 08:29:12 am ---[...] A power supply is not a charger.
--- End quote ---
Once you go down this road, you can equally argue "A power supply is not a diode tester", "A power supply is not a LED driver", "A power supply is not a TEK module driver", and any other specific thing you are doing with it?
I have always viewed a lab power supply as a general purpose source of power with variable voltage and variable current - what I do with that voltage and current is surely up to me?
--- End quote ---
Sure it is up to you but at the same time many power supplies are not designed for such usage. On the flip side special purpose power supplies for battery charging exist and are widely available. Considering that battery chagrining leads to fire more often that is should, making use of a supply designed for such usage is a wise move.
--- End quote ---
You don't always have a charger on hand for every single thing. For example do you have a battery charger for 9V block Ni-MH batteries?
Most chargers do the same thing a bench PSU does anyway. Supply a constant voltage with a current limit. Also there are cases where you might need more control over a charger that just on/off. One example is a battery test rig i cobbled together from a PSU and electronic load connected to a PC. It was used to generate test scenarios for a few battery monitoring systems that ran various types and sizes of lead acid batteries up and down for weeks non stop. For this i needed a battery charger that can easily be told by a PC to charge a battery in various different conditions. Such a thing is a lab PSU with SCPI control. But i did blow up one PSU during those tests, however it was not because the big ass deep cycle lead acid battery would feed power back into it, it was simply a cheep Tenma brand PSU from Farnell. Its cooling was apparently too poor(despite having a fan and no obstructions) and so after outputting a lot of current for a while the pass transistors gave up the ghost, my SCPI software even captured a graph of its death over the course of a few seconds as the output regulation went erratic before shooting up. I had a diode in place, but it was mostly to keep the internal dummy load resistor inside the PSU from discharging the battery when the PSU was turned off, i also had a fuse between the battery and test rig in case something blew up and the battery dumped all its might into it. I replaced the PSU with a better quality BK Precision PSU and it was running fine.
So the actual risk here was that the died PSU went out of regulation and if unchecked would overcharge the battery to destruction. Luckily lead acid cells don't mind it that much, NiCD and NiMH can take overcharge too as long as the current is not too high. Any LiFePo cells might be damaged but not cause any issues otherwise, most batteries don't catch fire even if you try so. But if it was a Li-Ion Li-Po etc this could have indeed ended ended up a pretty serious fire.
Fungus:
--- Quote from: wizard69 on March 10, 2021, 03:33:46 am ---
--- Quote from: ResistorRob on March 10, 2021, 03:19:24 am ---Nobody has posted the teaser video?
--- End quote ---
Interesting video but not enough info!
--- End quote ---
That's the definition of a "teaser".
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