[aos]

I plan to design and make some PCBs for power supplies for my many projects. I have too much projects half-done (some of it quite expensive and hard to get) because I don't have required power supply. Some need unregulated +-9V, and some need regulated +-5V, or +-12V or +-15V or even +-24V, or a combination of all those. And some need little current while others want lots of current.

I personally find them a huge hassle, so I'll just make a modular design, with unregulated but well filtered board being separate from regulation module. That way one can easily swap the regulation for whatever project calls for (super regulator, simple 3-pin regulator, or no regulator at all if one is already on the main board etc.). Also unregulated board would have line filter (common mode choke plus capacitors), could fit several different sizes of Talema transformers, would have two fuses, and after transformer it would have common mode choke with big bank of capacitors on each side, could fit DO-41 or TO-220 rectifier / ultrafast diodes bypassed with caps. One can of course put as many or as little parts on the board as necessary.

As for other PCB, a (Jung variant) super regulator as discussed last year on Headwize, with LM6171 broadband amp and two or three very high frequency transistors would be cool for 100-200mA to supply opamps, and maybe another simpler one using a buffer like in Kevin Gilmore's power supply, for output stages, to supply 1A or so. Probably using some of the LT's high performance voltage references just for fun.

The idea is to have everything or as much as possible available from Digikey so that you have no need to redesign the board every time you need to build a PS. Unfortunately Digikey is very expensive when it comes to Talemas (didn't they jack up the price by 30% or so?), line filters and heck even Panasonic caps are way overpriced, not to mention fuse holders etc.

I was just wondering if there is a general interest for such a thing. I'll probably be making them for myself anyway as I really need something like that. It's easy then to order a batch of boards... I just ordered a few boards for portable DAC and it was much less hassle than I thought it'd be and isn't expensive either.

 

[zzz]

How much do you expect the whole thing to cost (parts for the supply and regulator + boards)? It seems like a good idea to me, although for now I think I'll go with +-15V from Marchand Electronics (http://www.marchandelec.com/ps10.htm) just because in assembled and tested form it's just 50 USD (60 with shipping) and this time around I would prefer to spend as little time on that particular PS as possible (I would still have to DIY a +-350V and +580V one anyhow)...

 

[aos]

How much it costs is up to the person that chooses the parts. No expensive extras are obligatory, you can easily jump out stuff you don't want with wires and just use transformer, diodes and capacitors, oh and fuses. It's just a convenience if you need to build a power supply, having a PCB with easily sourceable parts.

 

[Nezer]

Saves me the trouble of protoboard... I'd be intrested.

 

[morsel]

It's an interesting concept, but I wonder if it is feasible to make such a generic mix and match power supply, since requirements and opinions vary so much.

 

[aos]

Well, the critical part for me is usually the transformer & rectifier & caps part. I am unwilling to have it done half-assed since it's high voltage and should be anything but shabby. This part is not frequently debated, other than Schottky/fast diodes and bypassing caps. If you can fit there anything you want than there is no need for discussion. Also, C/L/C filters are used by some and not by the others, again, can be jumpered. This would be a pretty simple board as there really isn't all that much here. The other one or two boards - regulators - are of course debatable, but I really don't care. Whoever doesn't like the particular implementation can always do their own.

This would make it straightforward to do things like dual mono or to even have quad regulators (two per channel, one for say opamp, the other for buffer or similar configuration with discrete parts). Just get two power supply boards, two low power ultraregulators and two high power ultraregulators and that's it. Populate them, wire them and you're done.