Fresh hacks every day
As an engineer at Spectrum Design in Minneapolis, [Carl] works with clients to get their product out to the masses. When designing a new USB-powered device, one client thought it would be a great idea to include a USB car charger with the device. The client promptly ordered a few thousand car chargers from China and everything was going swimmingly. Everything was fine, of course, until [Carl] … [Read more...]
[Bogin] was looking to add a benchtop power supply to his array of tools, but he didn’t really find any of the online tutorials helpful. Most of what he discovered were simple re-wiring jobs utilizing LM317 regulators and shorted PS-ON pins used to keep the PSUs happily chugging along as if nothing had been changed. No, what [Bogin] wanted was a serious power supply with short circuit protection … [Read more...]
[FozzTexx] has been using a bench supply he made from an AT PSU for years. He put a lot of work into that one, removing unnecessary wires, mounting banana plug jacks on the metal case, and adding an on/off switch and labels. But if it ever dies on him it will be a major pain to do all that work again in order to replace it. When he set out to build another bench supply from an ATX PSU he decided … [Read more...]
As is common among some hackers, [Henry] re-purposed an ATX power supply unit to function as a bench power supply for testing circuits on a breadboard (much like this fancy example). However, safety mechanisms on some modern PC PSUs do not automatically reset after over-current protection has kicked in, which soon became annoying for [Henry]. In order to make his power supply more … [Read more...]
Shamrock hat [Josh] whipped up a shamrock themed hat by adding an outline of green LEDs to this bowler. Just remember, don't drink and solder. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Battery-powered Xmas lights can be more useful [Karl] took a string of mostly useless battery-powered Christmas lights and found a good use for them. He replaced the stock board with a boost convert and … [Read more...]
[Ray's] breadboard power supply lets you drain the last traces of power from 'dead' AA batteries. Electronics that are powered off of disposable alkaline batteries have a cutoff voltage that usually leaves a fair amount of potential within. Since many municipal recycling programs don't take the disposables (you're just supposed to throw them in the trash!) we love the idea of squeezing them for … [Read more...]
If you've already dipped your toes into high-voltage power supply pool you may be thirsty for a bit more knowledge. Here's a neat illustration of how to build a voltage multiplier that can output a positive or negative supply. It is based on a design known as the Cockroft-Walton Multiplier. It's the add-on housed in the plastic box seen in the image above. It uses diodes and capacitors in an … [Read more...]
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