Power Supply for Home lab?

Its nothing personal, we tend to drag things off topic all of the time.

Still, I will apologize for interjecting on this post.

Mia Culpa.

DAB

Please don't apologize DAB as we all love your input!

As they say

"La diversité est le sel de la vie!"

My name isn't "Very Compact Scatterbrain" for nothing!

Please do not apologize. Acually

That's not dissimilar to me.

I have two brains. One's lost and the other's looking for it!

Ready made supplies like that are fine for completed projects but not much use for bench work where you need the ability to quite finely adjust the voltage and  current limit while you are getting things to work. The OP (104 posts ago !!) was asking about a lab type supply.

MK

To MK:

I assume OP =Original Post? b/c you also said "...104 posts..." Should I be calling this "Power Supply for Home Lab" a Discussion Thread? (DT) Or A Blog? Forgive the Lexicographer in me, it is a carry-over from my work. I just want us to be on the same Page or (Post). To that end are you considering/or-have enrolled in that www.coursera.org "Intro to Power Electronics" MOOC? I would love to bounce any ideas/concepts that might arise from that MOOC off of you (and other MOOC participants)? OR will such MOOC discussion violate the "spirit" of this DT? BTW is a SMPS (Switching Mode Power Supply) capable finely tuning current/voltage?

USCDADNYC (NY NY USA)

OP = Original poster

I won't be enrolling for "Intro to Power Electronics", after 40+ years in electronics it's too late for introductions now.

While SMPS can be tuned and finely controlled (although with some issues and most are not) the ready made power bricks offer no such facilities.

A great many precision lab type switching power supplies use a linear post regulator to mitigate some of the issues with regard to noise and transient response (especially of current limit) which limit the usefulness of a simple SMPS in lab type applications.

MK

Hi Michael,

I'm new to this blog, but I've been in engineering for many years, mostly test equipment and microwave communication equipment. Microwaves requires lots of good analog and digital control so I've done a lot of that too. My interest in your blog on a lab power supply fits into my latest project that I thought you might find interesting. That is to create a platform of control, display, packaging, cooling, and power management that would allow engineers to build specialized equipment that they would need for whatever their specialty was. Examples of what I know everyone needs is of course, lab power supplies, so this would be my first product. Next would be a programmable load, several varieties of microwave frequency synthesizers, microwave power detectors, block converters for extending the range of radios, and spectrum analyzers. Because you have a lab power supply designed, it seemed to me that you might be interested in participation in creating a product on this platform that would be remotely controlled, have a display of the voltage and current, a single knob control that would allow setting the output very precisely and stepping or scanning over a predetermined range with variable size steps. I am well on the way of completing the housing, control, display, etc.

These would have a standard interface so that they could easily be integrated into an automated test system.

I strongly believe that in order to sell test equipment one needs to be able to provide many different solutions in a multitude of areas so that a catalog would be extensive, and one would go to it for a solution of whatever their problem is. Hewlett Packard used to do this when Dave and Bill were around, but the new company has moved into bigger and more complex systems meant for volume manufacturers. (For example, a top of the line spectrum analyzer and now run several hundred thousand dollars.) They have also split off various companies that Dave Packard spent his lifetime collecting. I want to provide an alternative for consultants and engineers that have small labs and smaller budgets, In order to quickly generate a multitude of test equipment many different engineering talents would be required, so I plan to make the platform open source with standard interface so that engineers could easily create what they needed, but not have to worry about all the details of making a salable product, and marketing it. My role in this is to create the system for this to happen, define interfaces, create the market, and communicate with the participants.

Would you have an interest in participating in this?

Fred Storke

Hi Fred,

What is your opinion of the Red Pitaya?

Compact

My 2c worth... its awsome, I have one and am currently performing a review of it