EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: BradC on June 16, 2023, 10:27:03 am
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With a view to testing some custom battery charging profiles, I bought one of these as it has a PC interface and frankly was cheap :
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005060176198.html (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005060176198.html)
(https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S5c6414c1220745ab8f73fb0be559a29eA.png)
It doesn't come with software, and I've been unable to locate any. I've messaged the vendor through Aliexpress.
The USB interface presents as a standard CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller. I've tried a few different baud rates and random SCPI IDN commands. Does anyone have a lead on software or a protocol?
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The vendor got back to me. They provided Windows drivers, the PC software and a neat little docx file that "documented" the protocol. Winner.
When I get a moment I'll post them somewhere. The archive is ~250MB. Haven't even bothered to install the software, just knocked up a bit of python to control the supply.
For a fully controllable 30V/10A PSU for less than $150 landed, I'm quite impressed.
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I got a private poke about posting the doc, so I dug it out.
I've been using this to talk to the PSU for a while now, so I can verify it works.
There are some idiosyncrasies when measuring voltage as it approaches the changeover from CC to CV mode where the voltage will appear to leap about 30mV instantly. To measure an applied battery voltage, I set voltage to 1V and current to 0A.
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Can it output max current at max voltage without melting?
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Dunno. Haven't got a big enough load to test it.
I've tested it for a couple of hours at 200W and it didn't flinch.
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Sounds like a good 'un :-+
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Any comments on how noisy (both electrically and audibly) it is? And any other gotchas to be aware of? Seems like a very well priced unit, but I recently had to return a 60V/10A/300W Owon supply because it sounded like a vacuum cleaner running on your desk at any reasonable power output and had hundreds of millivolts of noise on the output.
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It's not overly noisy when the fan is running. I really have no idea about noise on the output because I bought it as a lead acid battery charger, so I haven't been bothered to look. Currently it lives in the garage connected to an old Acer netbook running the control and logging software, so noise (output or audible) isn't much of a consideration.
If I get some time I'll power up the scope and have a look, but it's all packed away at the moment and time is something I don't have a lot of.
I have a couple of MCH supplies (5A 60V & 10A 30V) and it's no noisier than those when the fan is running.
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For a fully controllable 30V/10A PSU for less than $150 landed, I'm quite impressed.
What did you pay for shipping? I see if for $60.99 an Ali shipped free. Post few internal pics, so it can tell the story if it's a great buy or not.
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The order reports :
Subtotal AU$110.58
Shipping AU$28.68
Coins -AU$1.10
Tax AU$13.82
Total AU$151.97
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I think aussie dollars vs US dollars explains it. I'm looking at 60ish GBP plus another 10ish for shipping and 20% tax (VAT, aka GST) ontop.
84 GBP for a 30V/10A/300W with remote control is a good deal IF there aren't any major issues like a screaming fan, unstable/overshooting output etc.
The Owon I mentioned (SPE6103) would have been even better (at under 100GBP delivered from amazon, and with 60V max output and a graph of power/voltage/current on the LCD) except for the totally unacceptable audible and electrical noise - having been bitten already with the Owon I'm nervous about just going for the probably un-returnable aliexpress one!