A few more spare hours, another project log, and another breakout board.

This, to be honest, is a complete stab in the dark for me. I have no idea what the outcome of it will be. I found the LM2596 (datasheet) and I thought it looked like it would fit the bill quite nicely. It seems to be ubiquitous enough that I am not going to get stuck with a part I cant source in the future, and deals with a much wider range of input voltages than I expected, plus it is most efficient at 12v for a 3.3v output. Hopefully this will be able to cope with a bunch of LED drivers as well. Searching for more information on it, I found a stack of breakout boards already exist for this. All good, I still need to make sure my parts work fine.

Searching around the dirtyPCBs/Dangerous Prototypes site, I stumbled across Sick of Beige. I wish I had found it before I built my first board! I have designed this board as the DP5050 standard, It had enough room for me to play around, and also fit under the dirtyPCBs 5x5 price bracket. Anyway, I will see how it turns out - if it works out, I'll try use one of the 'Golden Rectangle' sizes for the final product. I'd love to fit it into the DP7043, but will see.

Anyway, back to the board. The components used are my best guesses for the right values, based on what I can see on the datasheet and the breakout boards on fleaBay. Worst case, I can throw some bodge wires in and hack in different value components to get what I need. I will see what the output voltage looks like when I have it in my hands. I am struggling to find an SMD rectifier that is beefy enough to deal with the power that I want to play with, so ended up with this. I hope it works, if not, I should still be able to just pump 12v DC in through the DC OUT terminals to test the rest of the circuit. If you know of an option that is more suitable for me, please let me know!

Here is a rendering of it:

And once again, here is the dirtyPCBs link. Please, if you want to order one, use the link here. It gives me $1 in store credit towards my next boards. Like I said above though, there is a really good chance it doesn't work. I'll update this post when I have an answer.

On another note, I stumbled across this webpage. The writer has gone through the process of testing a bunch of different power sources for downlights, and documented their effects on retrofit LED lights. This confirms what my thoughts were on the different types. Looks like I am heading down the right track. I have a switch-mode downlight power supply here somewhere, if only I could find it ...