Thursday, February 9, 2012

Rack-Mount Power Supply

Unrelated to the Synthasystem, I just had a bit of an "accident" with some liquid electrical tape. Oops! What a mess!  Anyhow, ... here's the rack-mount power supply I've been working on.  If my Synthasystem reaches the size that I secretly hope it will, I'll have four of these.  But for now, one will be fine!



Sorry for the horrible pics!  This is using a PowerOne HAA15-0.8-AG PSU, an MOTM-960 distro-board, a few banana jacks (for a common ground), and Schurter plug/switch/fuse/etc. (KD13.1101.151, 4303.2906, and 0859.0074)  If only these things were more constantly in-stock at Mouser... ugh.

Anyhow, I made a full 3U high panel to hold all of these, based on David Ingebretsen's PSU panels. This uses the same PSU and switch/plug/fuse panel, but not the Blacet distro boards.  I've added 3 banana-jacks for ground, attached to the distro-board.  This is essential for many banana-based systems: individual modules aren't connected to a common ground via the PSU (i.e. different/multiple PSUs) and the path-cables (being bananas) don't include ground. So, there's a need to connect the ground of all power supplies.

Most of the connections are pretty self-explanatory... power supply common output goes to ground on the distro board, and then get brought out to the banana jacks.  +/- outputs on the PSU go to their respective terminals on the distro board as well.  The PSU inputs are all documented in the datasheet that comes with the PowerOne supply, and then the earth connection from the plug unit gets bolted to the PSU.  Since I want it to run +/- 15V, I cut the two jumpers that are marked on the PSU PCB.  Plugged it in and the house didn't burn down!  Measured the outputs and they are +15.02V and -15.02V - yay!

In the meantime I've also finished the Noise, Peak Selector, Ring Modulator, and Phase Shifter modules, and will post those soon.  I still need to order the panels for the Triple EG and Frequency Divider... unfortunately, I'm still working out an ideal rotary switch (need for the Frequency Divider).

2 comments:

  1. Liked the post. Looking forward for more like this.
    Rack mounted power supply

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your breakdown of the Rack Mount Power Supply, especially the insights on the Raritan Dominion PX PX3-5297, is incredibly informative for DIY enthusiasts like me. Considering Esaitech for my tech needs after hearing positive reviews about their quality products.

    ReplyDelete