Comments: Benchtop Power Board Kit Hookup Guide

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  • Member #771005 / about 2 years ago / 1

    Just a tip re installing the fuse clips. I found it far, far easier to tack the tabs in place on the top (silk) side of the board then finish soldering on the bottom, rather than to try to bend the tabs or otherwise hold the clips in place in an effort to solder entirely from the bottom

  • Member #1707141 / about 2 years ago * / 1

    Hello, the Eagle .brd file for v13 of the board shows airwires connecting all the ground connections. I assume there is a ground plane incorporated into the board, but I am not able to find and see that in the file. (I am very new to Eagle and PCDs, so I may just be misunderstanding all this.) Would I be able to submit this board to be manufactured as-is, or does something need to be done to connect all the ground airwires to a ground plane?

  • Member #888745 / about 6 years ago / 1

    The section of the guide regarding the installation of the standoffs mentions the existence of a template in the GitHub repo for cutting or milling an opening in a case. I only see the 2 eagle files in the repo.

  • Member #1169843 / about 6 years ago / 1

    I designed a 3d printed case for this to keep the kids little fingers from accidentally touching live electrical components. You can find it here. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2575867

  • Member #419695 / about 7 years ago / 1

    Anyone have any suggestions for how to incorporate the Digital Voltmeter (PRT-14313) into this? It'd be nice to see what voltages are being output in case the power supply starts to get shonky. Sure, I can test it with my multimeter, but it'd be spiffy to add this in...

  • Member #810479 / about 7 years ago / 1

    Can the board handle more than 5 amps with a higher amp fuse? I have a power supply that can supply up to 17 amps on the 12 volt rail. I may need up to 10 of that for a lighting project.

  • Member #718250 / about 9 years ago / 1

    I've been looking for something like this since most of the ones that are purpose built or you can find online are easily in excess of $100.

    I had a question though. While you talk about voltages you never mention wattage, more specifically what the wattage of the ATX power supply is that you use or recommend. Does that matter? I know I'm (probably) not going to be powering a massive graphics card with this, or billions of transistors on a CPU, but I was curious if you had any recommendations or suggestions.

    • It's dependent on the current/wattage required for what you will be powering. A 2W power supply obviously wouldn't work to power a 5V, 2A (10W) motor driver off of this board.

      Beyond that, we haven't heard of any complaints relating to specific supplies, so I'd recommend checking on the forums to see if folks have opinions on pros/cons of any particular supplies you are looking at.

  • Member #113383 / about 9 years ago / 1

    While I did get it built, I have a couple of observation that might make it a bit easier to build.

    For the most part, putting it together was easy, but putting the barrel connectors in was tedious and took more time then all the other assembly work. Here are some suggestions for the next rev that might make that go a bit more smoothly.

    1) Make the holes for the barrel connectors a bit bigger so they go in easier. I actually had problems with the threads getting damaged when inserting them

    2) Space the connectors out a bit better. Some of the bolts were interfering with adjacent ones which made it difficult to install them. And in two cases I also had problems with the connecting wire's solder point getting the way ( but I think that was largely my fault for the way I put the wires in the holes - this might be fixable by adding a little note in the hook up guide ).

    Otherwise, after after accidentally blasting a trace off of my ATX Connector Breakout Board, I'm glad this one has fuses. And I had no problems mounting it on the top of an ATX power supply ( which the Breakout Board was too - but obviously I had to drill new holes ).

  • Member #585773 / about 9 years ago / 1

    Why does the picture of the LED being inserted conflict with the directions above the image? I'm new to all this, but as far as I can tell, the long side should go closest to the resister and the short leg toward the flat side; as it's pictured... Am I missing something?

    • Nope - you were right! The section was written with the wrong type of LED in mind. Good catch!


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