Archive for the ‘Power’ Category.

KWeld spot welder

I recently bought Kweld spot welder kit for all battery welding purposes. The old, transformer welder was not good and welds were not consistent and reliable. Worst issue with transformer welder was inability to weld thicker metal strips (0,3mm Ni).

The Kweld came with everything needed to start welding except power supply source. They offer supercap bank with charger or recommend some RC batteries. I had niether. The most suitable battery pack I have was 3S1P LiFePo pack with internal resistance of 5mΩ. Unfortuantely such source is not OK for kWeld.

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Low cost single cell battery pack simulator

Modern battery operated portable devices use smart battery packs. Every new development of an electronic medical device must follow strict design flow defined by world-wide or local regulatory
directives. The development process of any such device using smart battery pack requires specific operating conditions to meet the testing criteria. When smart battery pack is one of the main power sources the host system should be tested with several battery states. The testing is necessary during development, validation and later in production testing.

Battery simulator block diagram

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Cheap sh*t magnetic pickup

Do you ever wondered how much magnetic field garbage is around you? This is cheap and easy build to measure magnetic noise or to compare which switching supply is more sh*tty.

Near field probes are nothing new. It’s easy to find one via web search. Here is one good reference for H and E field probes which I found via google image search:

EMC near field probes for H and E field

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Precision voltage source – voltage calibrator

_________________ Work in progress _______ Last change: 22.10.2017 ______________

 

What I missed in my workshop is nifty small programmable precision voltage source which can be used as calibration voltage source for testing and calibration purposes. I decided to make one, because instruments which have word “calibrator” have price with same digits as there is vocals in this magic word.

Let’s start with block diagram:

Voltage calibrator – Block diagram

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PRECIsion Power SUpply project

PreciPSU is an attempt to build high performance power supply. The idea started few years ago but it was never realised. Some major target performance specs are as follows:

  • three isolated channels
  • around 50W per channel
  • 24V/3A output per channel
  • lowest possible ripple at fastest response
  • small size
  • programmable via USB
  • nice housing with minimalist user interface (2 plugs per channel, knob, button and small display

Update 15.7.2017: block diagram

PreciPSU Block diagram

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Raspberry Pi breakout board with ESD, PoE and Cortex M0

This is Raspberry Pi GPIO connector breakout board with some additional features:

  • “Real” or “passive” PoE with 12V output
  • 5V DC/DC module
  • Additional 3,3V regulator
  • ESD protection on all GPIO pins
  • two additional pins for each pin on R.Pi 40 pin GPIO connector
  • Separate UART and I2C headers
  • 3,3V Supply for periphery is selectable: from R.Pi or from external regulator
  • STM32F070 or similar in TSSOP-20 housing for controlling additional sensor or any other hardware
  • Jumper for Cortex-M0 / R.Pi UART connection

First prototype

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Quadruple BDC motor driver for robotics

Once finished (deadline is end of January) this project will become open-source software and hardware.

My quadruple BDC driver for supports up to 4 brushed motors with encoders. Each motor is controlled by its individual closed loop and individual PID gain settings. Additionally, motor speed can also be individually addressed. Analog part of the driver is based on DRV8701P predriver and is controlled by STM32F4 microcontroller.

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Battery with charger

There will be series of simple(r) circuits for my new electronic course for elementary school. For start we need power source. Batteries are fine until flattened out, therefore it’s good to have rechargeable one. I took MCP73831T-2ACI/OT, added micro USB connector and switch to select between charge/discharge mode. In the charge mode, the output is connected to +5V input supply. The power is delivered to the charger via micro USB connector, which means eny mobile phone USB supply will do the job. The charge current is limited to 2A and battery cell has integrated protection circuit. I will add 3D printed housing for the complete pack after the testing of first prototypes.

Prototype of the battery pack

Prototype of the battery pack

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LED shades

Light Emitting Dance shades – general purpose party accessory.

LED Shades v0.3

LED Shades v0.3

About this project

I believe many young adults like to party and with the rapidly growing EDM community a lot of people attend parties with electronic music. I am one of them and you can probably tell where I got the idea to make the LED shades. Projects like this one don’t just keep me occupied in my free time but are also designed to broaden my knowledge in electronics and programming. Continue reading ‘LED shades’ »