Win a Tenma Power Supply

Here are a few real-life examples I would use it for.

1) Multi-chemistry battery charger. There are many types of batteries on the market and each type requires special charging conditions. I have single cells and assembled packs of Ni-MH, Li-ion and Li-Polymer accumulators in various projects and at work. Also Pb accumulators in a car and a scooter. There are special chargers for each type, but CV and CC modes are OK to charge all the types. Of course the form factor is bigger than a dedicated charger, but if you know the specifics of your accumulators, you can increase or reduce the charging speed.

Recently, we saved a colleague who came to work on a motorcycle, but later couldn't start because of a drained battery. Using a power supply, not only we charged the battery so he could start the engine, but also kept all the electronic circuitry running. Some new cars refuse to start after a DIY accumulator change.

2) Measuring capacitors leakage current

As described in baldengineer's tutorial https://www.element14.com/community/community/element14-presents/workbenchwednesdays/blog/2019/06/19/measuring-an-aluminum-electrolytic-capacitors-esr . At work, we use large electrolytic capacitors during manufacturing of some of our devices, in order to test the low power modes of the device. Every capacitor used this way needs to be measured for the leakage current so the devices' low power mode is distinguished from a capacitor self-discharging.

3) Cooler/heater for component specification testing

There are many applications that will benefit from a regulated power delivered to a Peltier module.

I used this a few times already. I needed to overclock a CPU for a while and used Peltier module inserted between the CPU and a heat sink with a fan.

A general purpose heater or cooler might be built the same way - just attaching a large CPU heat sink with a fan on one side and a heated/cooled object on the other. This setup can be used to test leakage current of various components, mainly (but not limited to) semiconductors. For example microcontrollers can have 1000x higher leakage current at 100 Centigrade, compared to a consumption specified in the datasheet for 25 Centigrade.

4) Flicker-free LED lightning

A few years ago, LCDs started with tubes' back light and later moved to LEDs. Still, there are cheaper back lights in LCDs in stand alone-monitors and laptops that use PWM dimming. The same is situation is now with LED lightning. If the lights are dimmable, they use PWM. Higher frequencies are used so the flickering effect is reduced, but there is nothing more comfortable linear power dimming. This requires building your own power supply (or at least I haven't seen a commercially available solution).

Here are a few real-life examples I would use it for.

1) Multi-chemistry battery charger. There are many types of batteries on the market and each type requires special charging conditions. I have single cells and assembled packs of Ni-MH, Li-ion and Li-Polymer accumulators in various projects and at work. Also Pb accumulators in a car and a scooter. There are special chargers for each type, but CV and CC modes are OK to charge all the types. Of course the form factor is bigger than a dedicated charger, but if you know the specifics of your accumulators, you can increase or reduce the charging speed.

Recently, we saved a colleague who came to work on a motorcycle, but later couldn't start because of a drained battery. Using a power supply, not only we charged the battery so he could start the engine, but also kept all the electronic circuitry running. Some new cars refuse to start after a DIY accumulator change.

2) Measuring capacitors leakage current

As described in baldengineer's tutorial https://www.element14.com/community/community/element14-presents/workbenchwednesdays/blog/2019/06/19/measuring-an-aluminum-electrolytic-capacitors-esr . At work, we use large electrolytic capacitors during manufacturing of some of our devices, in order to test the low power modes of the device. Every capacitor used this way needs to be measured for the leakage current so the devices' low power mode is distinguished from a capacitor self-discharging.

3) Cooler/heater for component specification testing

There are many applications that will benefit from a regulated power delivered to a Peltier module.

I used this a few times already. I needed to overclock a CPU for a while and used Peltier module inserted between the CPU and a heat sink with a fan.

A general purpose heater or cooler might be built the same way - just attaching a large CPU heat sink with a fan on one side and a heated/cooled object on the other. This setup can be used to test leakage current of various components, mainly (but not limited to) semiconductors. For example microcontrollers can have 1000x higher leakage current at 100 Centigrade, compared to a consumption specified in the datasheet for 25 Centigrade.

4) Flicker-free LED lightning

A few years ago, LCDs started with tubes' back light and later moved to LEDs. Still, there are cheaper back lights in LCDs in stand alone-monitors and laptops that use PWM dimming. The same is situation is now with LED lightning. If the lights are dimmable, they use PWM. Higher frequencies are used so the flickering effect is reduced, but there is nothing more comfortable linear power dimming. This requires building your own power supply (or at least I haven't seen a commercially available solution).