New Bench Supply

I finally pulled the trigger and bought a bench power supply.  Up until this point I have just been using the ATX breakout board.  I've been looking around for a while, trying to way up price vs features and finally settled on the Siglent SPD3303D.



The supply has 2 fully adjustable channels that can work in independent, series and parallel modes.  The 3rd channel switches between 2.5v/3.3v/5v at 3A.  The display only covers the first 2 channels, the 3rd channel just has the LED displaying CV/CC mode.  The 2 adjustable channels also have a timer function which can be programmed either on the supply itself or via USB using the included software (just like other features).

I settled on this guy because it ticked all my boxes - and physically was the right size for my shelf as well.

There is quite a lengthy thread on this particular supply here on the EEVBlog forum.  This thread mentions two issues found with the supply - namely:
  1. Spikes / overshoots on CH3 during power on / power off of the entire supply
  2. Spikes when the output of CH3 when a load is removed
If you read the entire thread on the EEVBlog forum you'll notice that both Siglent and the Australian supplier mention that there was a revision of the hardware late last year (2013) which fixed these issues.  As posted by Siglent Support the hardware version number has not changed. The supplier confirmed that the version I had ordered was this latest revision. 

So the first thing I did was some testing when the supply showed up.  The results I got show that there is some level of fix that has been applied to the 3rd channel.  Cold start of the whole unit with a load resistor on the 3rd channel:



There is still a spike there.  Removing the load from the 3rd channel:



Again still a small spike.

Both of these results are less that the original issues picked up with the hardware revision from last year.  And they only occur on the 3rd channel - which I personally don't have a huge issue with.  The first two channels don't have any of these issues. 

I also wanted to note that the service I received from TRIO Test & Measurement was awesome.  If you are in Australia check them out!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Installing OpenGD77 on an Retevis RT3s

Image
So the Brisbane Amateur Radio Club (BARC) that I joined has been playing with a few different digital modes - and one of them is Digital Mobile Radio or DMR.  The club's page on DMR has some information on how they got started, the radio most members have bought (Retevis RT3S) and there is also a page with code plugs configured with local repeaters to help get people going. The RT3S is a pretty cool little HT for $80-90.  It's UHF/VHF, has GPS, APRS (TX only) and DMR support - and it runs OpenGD77 - an opensource firmware that a number of club members have flashed their HT with. This all looked pretty cool - so last week I ordered an RT3S off the Retevis eBay store and it showed up a few days later.  I opted for the pack with the programming cable:   The radio itself is built pretty well with my only complaint being it doesn't have USB-C (or any direct DC) source of charging.  You need to stick it in the dock that it comes with.  I'll continue to l...
Read more

Installing DD-WRT on a TP-LINK TL-WR842ND

Image
I love playing with routers and network gear in general - who doesn't?  In the past I've never run the same router at home for long while I swap them out with different software and/or hardware.  This has slowed a bit lately due to life, but hasn't completely stopped. I ran an early model WRT54G with DD-WRT for a while a number of years ago.  That was my last foray into DD-WRT (it's been pfsense and now routeros since).  I wanted to give DD-WRT another go and so started looking through my box of bits to see what I might have that would work.  After a bit of digging in the parts box and reading online I soon realised most of my gear would run DD-WRT, but a 'micro' build.  I'm interested in having a play with some of the extra stuff that DD-WRT has to offer so I needed something with a little more Flash and RAM. DD-WRT openly recommend a TP-Link TL-WR740N to start with, and for $19AUD from a local store it's a pretty awesome recommendation.  Gett...
Read more

Baby Monitor LCD Repair

Image
Pretty quick post about my morning repairing the baby monitor that we were given for our new born last week.  It's an Angelcare AC401 (sensor pads not pictured): It's only issue was the LCD display.  It started out just missing a segment or two when our friends were still using it, and slowly progressed until the display was almost useless: We were gifted the monitor, as our friends kids are past that age - which saved us a chunk of $$ on a new one.  So I set about opening it up to see what sort of connection the LCD display was using to see if I could reseat/reconnect it to get the LCD working 100% again: Once it was apart the cable to the LCD was clearly visible, and was just one of those glued ribbon cables.  The best link I could find about repairing one of these is from  Instructables .  I followed that, using a peg to hold the display where I needed it while working on it: I got out my heat gun and put it on the lowest setti...
Read more