Hi guys n gals
So, I'm starting an online elecronics engineering course and a lab PSU would be rather handy right about now. I started looking around with the view to buying one, but gave up as I don't have the kind of cash that any of the half decent ones go for, but since I've already made almost all of my lab equipment so far, it was inevitable I'd end up having a crack at this too.
The heart of it is a micro ATX PSU I bought by accident a while back, it's not even been out of it's box until now so it's still good as new. The case it's in is an old RS PCB exposure box that died just recently, it got stripped down to be upgraded, but I ended making a completely new one so was going spare for one project or another.
I paired it with an equally old project box which I thought would make a great console for mounting the binding posts and such:
View attachment 18327
Couple of things I need clearing up on.
There's are two thin red and orange wires I can't identify, they shared pins with a couple of thicker wires of the same colour (circled in red):
View attachment 18327
Does this mean they need to be tied with the thicker wires in a similar manner to the binding posts?
If the -12v and +12v lines are combined, does it give 24v, or magic smoke?
If it does give 24v, is there any reason a step down module could be inserted inline so the output was adjustable?
It seemed a cheap and simple alternative solution to making my own adjustable circuit as time is of essence and in short supply at the moment.
As to the step down module, I got one with adjustable V and A, and my hope was to swop out the pots on the module (circled in red) for something more finger friendly I could mount. I can just see those tiny screw adjusters on the little blue pots getting pretty tedious in quick time:
View attachment 18329
I'm assuming I'll need to find the base value of the pots in order to replace them with the equivalents but not sure how to go about it.
Also, not quite sure what fuse rating I should use with the outputs, and if one rating fits all, or if each output need their own particular rated fuses (ie 3.3v = 5A, 5v = 3A etc etc).
Any help and thoughts would be most appreciated, thanks (c:
So, I'm starting an online elecronics engineering course and a lab PSU would be rather handy right about now. I started looking around with the view to buying one, but gave up as I don't have the kind of cash that any of the half decent ones go for, but since I've already made almost all of my lab equipment so far, it was inevitable I'd end up having a crack at this too.
The heart of it is a micro ATX PSU I bought by accident a while back, it's not even been out of it's box until now so it's still good as new. The case it's in is an old RS PCB exposure box that died just recently, it got stripped down to be upgraded, but I ended making a completely new one so was going spare for one project or another.
I paired it with an equally old project box which I thought would make a great console for mounting the binding posts and such:
View attachment 18327
Couple of things I need clearing up on.
There's are two thin red and orange wires I can't identify, they shared pins with a couple of thicker wires of the same colour (circled in red):
View attachment 18327
Does this mean they need to be tied with the thicker wires in a similar manner to the binding posts?
If the -12v and +12v lines are combined, does it give 24v, or magic smoke?
If it does give 24v, is there any reason a step down module could be inserted inline so the output was adjustable?
It seemed a cheap and simple alternative solution to making my own adjustable circuit as time is of essence and in short supply at the moment.
As to the step down module, I got one with adjustable V and A, and my hope was to swop out the pots on the module (circled in red) for something more finger friendly I could mount. I can just see those tiny screw adjusters on the little blue pots getting pretty tedious in quick time:
View attachment 18329
I'm assuming I'll need to find the base value of the pots in order to replace them with the equivalents but not sure how to go about it.
Also, not quite sure what fuse rating I should use with the outputs, and if one rating fits all, or if each output need their own particular rated fuses (ie 3.3v = 5A, 5v = 3A etc etc).
Any help and thoughts would be most appreciated, thanks (c: