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Blog AIM-TTI QPX750SP RoadTest | A Non-Conventional Power Supply Review
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AIM-TTI QPX750SP RoadTest | A Non-Conventional Power Supply Review

Attila Tőkés
Attila Tőkés
11 Aug 2021

  • 1. Motivation
  • 2. Power Supplies
  • 3. Dummy Loads
  • 4. Test Equipment
  • 5. Test Plan

 

The AIM-TTI QPX750SP is a powerful bench power supply, capable of providing a maximum of 750W DC power within a wide voltage range of 0-80 V. It is a professional instrument I got for testing as part of the AIM-TTI Bench Power Supply RoadTest.

Aim-TTi QPX750SP Bench /System DC Power supply

This blog post is the 1st one from a series of blog posts, in which I will try to thoroughly evaluate the unit.

 

With this occasion, I would like to thank AIM-TTI and Element14 for providing this power supply. I'm confident it will be very useful for many of my future projects. image

 

1. Motivation

 

A good bench power supply is an essential tool of an electronic hobbyist.

Most hobbyist (including me image) however do not pay too much attention on what (bench) power supply they are using.

 

For example, I usually choose one of the bellow "power supplies" depending on the needs:

  • RD Tech DPH5005, a relatively cheap 50V / 5A current limited DC-DC buck-boost power supply
  • old ATX power supply converted to bench supply, providing 12V, 5V and 3.3V DC
  • various 12V DC adapters
  • various power adapters for laptops, usually 16-19V DC
  • 3.3V and 5V generated with a random Arduino board
  • LiPo batteries connected in different configurations

 

Now, the above "power supplies" are either low-end bench power supplies, or not suited for testing / development purposes at all. The reason I still use them is that probably I do no really understand (yet) the limitation of the above supplies, and the benefits of a decent bench power supply.

 

The AIM-TTI QPX750SP Bench Power Supply will be an ideal replacement for my collection of low-end power supplies. The QPX750SP has way better specs than all of the above "power supplies". Additionally, it has some features like LAN (LXI) and GPIB interfaces, which allow some interesting application featuring remote monitoring / control.

 

My goal for this Road Test is to gain general knowledge about power supplies, and also help other hobbyists to do so.

 

The plan for this road test is to do a practical comparison between the AIM-TTI QPX750SP Bench Power Supply and my collection of dubious "power supplies".

 

2. Power Supplies

 

As I mentioned earlier, the AIM-TTI QPX750SP will be tested against my collection of "bench" power supplies, I usually use to supply power to my projects.

 

So, here is the list of power supplies I will evaluate in this road test:

 

Power SupplyDescription

AIM-TTI QPX750SP

image

Single output lab DC power supply with a maximum power output of 750W.

 

Voltage: 0 - 80 V

Current: 0 - 50 A

Power: 0 - 750 W

 

Operating Modes:
constant voltage (CV), constant current (CC), constant power (CP)

 

Features:

over voltage protection (OVP), over current protection (OVC)

LAN and USB connectivity

(product page)

RD Tech DPH5005

image

Lab supply / DC-DC buck-boost converter with a DC input.

 

Voltage: 0 - 50 V

Current: 0 - 5 A

Power: 0 - 250 W

 

Operating Modes:
constant voltage (CV), constant current (CC)

 

Features:

optional USB / Bluetooth connectivity

 

(product page)

Modified ATX Power Supply
(Premier LC-8460BTX)

image

ATX power supply modified to be used as a primitive lab supply.

 

Voltage: 3.3, 5, 12V, -12V

Current: 22 / 15 / 16 A (max)

 

Specs:

image

IBM Laptop Charger / Supply
(16V)
image

 

Voltage: 16 V

Current: 3.36 A (max)

Power: ~ 54 W (max)

image

ASUS Laptop Charger / Supply

(19V)

image

 

Voltage: 19 V

Current: 3.42 A (max)

Power: ~ 60 W (max)

image

Mean Well Power Adapter

(12V)

image

Voltage: 12 V

Current: 2.5 A (max)

Power: ~ 30 W (max)

image

LiteOn Power Brick

(19V, designed for NVIDIA)

image

The power supply of a Jetson AGX Xavier development kit.

 

Voltage: 19 V

Current: 3.42 A (max)

Power: ~ 60 W (max)

image

LTE Power Brick

(12V, designed for Xilinx?)

image

The power supply of a Xilinx ZCU104 evaluation kit.

 

Voltage: 12 V

Current: 5 A (max)

Power: ~ 60 W (max)

image

Arduino Like Boards

image

image

Commonly used to provide 3.3 V and 5 V for testing.

 

Voltage: 3.3 / 5 V

Current: ~ 1 / 1.5 / 2 A (max)

LiPo Battery

(Turnigy Bolt 1800)

image

High performance LiPo battery with 4 cells and a 1800 mAh capacity.

 

Voltage: 15.2 V (17.6 V fully charged)

Current: 65 - 130 C (~117 A continuous / 234 A peak)

 

 

3. Dummy Loads

 

As you may have already guessed, I don't have a programmable electronic load to properly test these power supplies. image

 

Instead, we will use a set of DIY loads to simulate different kind of devices that could be powered with a power supply:

 

LoadDescription

Heating Element salvaged from broken Steam Iron

image

image

Resistive load.

 

Resistance: 36 Ω

Power: ~1500W @ 230V

Heating Element salvaged from broken Cooking Panel

image

Resistive load.

 

Resistance: 41 Ω

Power: ~1300W @ 230V

Heating Element salvaged from broken Bread Machine

image

Resistive load.

 

 

Resistance: 93 Ω

Power: ~570W @ 230V

Floor Heating Film, 12V

image

Resistive load.

 

 

 

Resistance: 4.2 Ω

Power: ~35W @ 12V

DC Motor salvaged from broken Bread Machine

image

Inductive load.

 

DC motor with 50W power.

 

Inductance: ?

Power: 50W @ 230V

 

Will be used with a fly-back diode for protection.

Electrolytic Capacitors

image

Relatively high value capacitors (100uF / 35V).

 

Capacitance: 100uF x 20

 

The capacitors will be packed in a bank, and will be
used to the check the power supplies response to capacitive loads.

DIY DC Electronic Load

image

I will also try to build a simple DC Electronic Load.

 

It will consists of a MOSFET controlled by a micro-controller, a restive load and some filter caps.

 

4. Test Equipment

 

To examine the power supplies behavior under different conditions the following test equipment will be used:

 

Test EquipmentDescription

Keysight MSOX3034TMSOX3034T Mixed Signal Oscilloscope

image

The MSOX3034TMSOX3034T is a four channel, 350MHz bandwidth mixed signal oscilloscope I reviewed last year:

InfiniiVision 3000T X-Series Oscilloscope MSOX3034 - Review

 

It will be used to monitor the voltage and current response of the tested power supplies.

Hantek CC-65 Current Probe

image

Oscilloscope probe for non-contact current measurement.

Vici VC99 Handheld Digital Multimeter

image

Handheld multimeter capable of measuring both voltage and current.

Keysight U1231AU1231A Handheld Digital Multimeter

 

image

Handheld multimeter capable of measuring voltage.

PC / Raspberry Pi / Arduino

image

For data logging and control purposes.

 

5. Test Plan

 

The Road Test review will consists in multiple blog posts and the final road test review.

 

The Road Test will focus on different aspects of the power supplies, and they will also include experiments targeting:

  • operating modes - constant voltage, constant current, constant power
  • output ripple and noise
  • settings resolution - voltage, current
  • protections - over voltage, over current, short circuit
  • load handling characteristics - resistive / inductive / capacitive loads, dynamic load
  • etc.

 

The next blog post will focus on behaviour of the tested the power supplies under static loads (resistive / inductive / capacitive). Then, the following blog posts will focus on aspects like dynamic load handling, protections, and others.

 

In the final Road Test Review I will do a recap comparison between the tested power supplies, and I will also take a look on the different features of the AIM-TTI QPX750SP.

 

Stay tuned! image

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