Bench Power Supply Musings

Description

There are many great instructions out there on how to build you own bench power supply. This isn't one of them. This is intended as a collection of my ideas and the projects that inspired them.

Project Logs

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Amp meter display light mod
Stefan Lochbrunner • 03/02/2016 at 23:43 • 0 comments

This is probably a really niche problem but I sometimes need an amp meter with an illuminated display when I need to characterize some LEDs from eBay that come without a datasheet, for example. In order to see when a LED starts to light up I need to turn down my lights which also prevents me from being able to read the analog amp meter seen in the project image. I could use my DMM, which has a display backlight, but using the 'built in' amp meter of this power supply is just more convenient.
From converting my broken desk lamp to LEDs I had some leftover pieces of LED strips that just seemed perfect for this purpose so I did a quick test and soldered up this prototype:
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The (in)complete list of ATX PSU projects to rule them all
Stefan Lochbrunner • 02/15/2015 at 14:11 • 0 comments
Here are a couple of links that I found useful. I'll update the list as I find new sites and please let me know if you know projects that should be listed here as well.
Let's start with HaD.io projects. A quick search results in
- #ATX power supply conversion for bench usage
- #ATX Benchtop Power Supply
- #Bench Power Supply - ATX PSU Adapter
- and you might also want to check out @davedarkos take on the topic here, here and here
For the next links there's probably going to be some overlap with references from the above projects but I'd like to mention them nonetheless.
If you have googled the topic you might have come across Phil's video about the topic. There's also some more information in the video description. While on the topic of videos, this one makes a good point why a conversion might not be the best idea.
Now for some detailed tutorials over on intructables:
- Very nice build in a case with swappable PSUs (I think this one was featured on HaD)
- A minimalistic approach
- More tricked out with adjustable voltage
- This one has a lot of information on the topic
- Based on a breakout board
- I really like the form factor of this one
These are some links that might be useful for adding features like adjustable voltage and digital control:
This post about the efficieny of switching voltage regulators is also quite interesting.
Cheap two lead voltmeter mod
Stefan Lochbrunner • 02/15/2015 at 00:20 • 11 comments

For my first PSU build I used one of these cheap LED voltmeters that you can get from eBay for less than 2€. The ones I got have a measuring range of approx. 3-30V. The lower boundary is due to the fact that these meters measure their own supply voltage.
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ATX Bench PSU v1
Stefan Lochbrunner • 02/14/2015 at 21:42 • 0 comments

Before starting the project I did some research and found many great instructions so I'll not go into detail about the topic but rather share some pictures and comments.
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James Newton wrote 01/16/2016 at 22:12

Nicely done. I have a "homemade" voltage readout based on my BOB PCB and a cheap character LCD... honestly, much more expensive and less use friendly than that cheap 7-segment unit. The BOB PCB does, however, have something on it that has potential... a high side current sense circuit and relay driver which has the (unrealized) potential to add current limiting to these PC power supplies. That could be valuable... you could set the max current, and if it is exceeded, the BOB would disconnect the supply until reset. If you are interested in playing around with it, let me know.

http://techref.massmind.org/techref/microchip/bob.htm

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Stefan Lochbrunner wrote 01/17/2016 at 00:03

Thanks! Making something more complicated than it has to be, even if it means that it's going to be more expensive, is kind of the point, isn't it ;)

That's a neat use of your multi-purpose board. Its features sound like you'd be able to build a digitally controlled power supply with it. I like a new board to play around with as much as the next guy but unfortunately I'm not really set up for PIC development. However, I appreciate the offer.

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Bench Power Supply Musings

Description

Project Logs

Collapse logs

Amp meter display light mod

The (in)complete list of ATX PSU projects to rule them all

Cheap two lead voltmeter mod

ATX Bench PSU v1

Discussions

Similar Projects