DIY Adjustable P/S for Olsen595, Grinch, Ren16, maybe Ren64

[P. Short]

This is one missing piece of the puzzle that may be causing difficulties for some people. At the moment I have a design for a 1A adjustable supply based on the LM431 IC and a D44H8 transistor. It has a fair number of parts, but a very similar P/S based on the LM217 adjustable regulator would be easy to create.

Is there any interest in this? What I'm thinking of is a PCB with integrated transformer that could be (depending on which parts are stuffed) good for up to perhaps 3A at 5V (limited by the heatsinking). This would be good for powering up to 3 Ren64 boards, 3 Olsen/595 boards, or perhaps 6 Grinch controllers (or Grinches + Ren-C). With a different transformer and filter capacitor it could be used to source around 3A at 9-12V for the Ren16 board.

Another possibility would be to add a H11AA1 to create a zero-crossing circuit for the Ren-C or the current Ren64 board.

--

Phil

Edit - below is a photo of the existing board that I mentioned (PCB fab and etching courtesy of Wayne J). The new board would look somewhat similar, except that it would include the transformer on-board.

--

Phil

[tconley]

phil,
would this be basically a replacement for the renard-t minus the 485 converter?

[Wayne J]

A replacement with a bonus, it will power the boards if your using thr PWM firmware, which the Ren-T cannot. That is of course ,if the last option Phil mentioned is added, the ZeroCross.
No, it does not have the RS232/RS485 conversion.

[tconley]

Would it make sense to incorporate that and get an evolution in the ren-t the ren-t^2

[P. Short]

That is something that may happen, depending on response here.

--

Phil

[rrowan]

Hi Phil

Does this replace powering up a controller from a pc?

How would it work? Say with a Grinch and Ren-C board?

Nice little ps just not sure where it goes.

Thanks

Rick R.

[P. Short]

rrowan,

Yes, that is one of it's purposes. In that case you would have one cable running from the p/s board to the Grinch power input, a RS232 extension cable to the serial port on the PC, and an RJ45 cable to the Ren-C input.

--

Phil

[kmc123]

I'm interested!

[XmasInGalt]

Me too!!! I'm going to add REC-Cs for my Olsen boards so a ZC add would be great.

[P. Short]

Here is a first cut at the PCB layout, a highly modified version of what was shown in the photo.

1 LM217 U1
1 H11AA1 U2
4 1N5817 D1, D3, D4, D5
1 3FS-412 T1 (110VAC locales)
1 3FD-412 T1 (220VAC locales)
1 7023B-MTG Heatsink (overkill, perhaps)
1 XRL10V6800 C1
4 534-4966 Terminals

+ misc resistors, DB9P, and RJ45.

I'll probably be adding an adjustment pot as well.

--

Phil

[jeff.ott]

I'm also interested as I have to add power to my 595's after I make the Ren-C conversion. I'm not sure how to power the 595's after this conversion as I now have the power on the cat5 cable comming from my PC's parallel port. ( I added a power lug to the parallel port connector). Can the power travel through the connectors on the Ren-C's to the 595? This way one could develop an enclosure that would house the P/S, Ren-C and the 595.

[P. Short]

There isn't any power connection between the RJ45 serial connectors on the Ren-C and the 595/Grinch board. The Ren-C board was designed to be powered from the 595 board, not the other way around.

The current required by those boards is fairly high (~ 1A for the 595 board, 0.5A for Grinch), so it's best if the power supply for those boards is close to the controller. The wire resistance of the 24AWG wire in CAT5 cables is pretty high, which is why it is better to use heavier gauge wire and to keep them short.

--

Phil

[Aurbo99]

Variable power supply.

I always though a Var PSU would have an adjustable POT or something to tweak?


I am definately interested.

[P. Short]

It's adjustable at the moment (if you know up-front what voltage you want) by changing two of the resistors up by the heat-sink. But as I wrote, I intend to add a pot to allow more convenient adjustment when true variability is needed.

--

Phil

[Wombat]

Im interested in a few
Wombat

[avatar-it]

I am interested as well. it would tidy things up nicely for me.