Anyone tried converting their old working psu into a bench power supply?
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Heisen
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It is okay, as the name suggests it's just a power supply, specifically meant for computers. You get few fixed output voltages rails like 3.3v, 5.0v, 12v etc, but that's about it. In the video the guy used a buck/boost converter separately to get the variable voltage and variable current output, I think from the 12v rail. You can slap that thing on any power supply to get variable output.
On 3.3v, 5.0v, 12v rails there are built in protections, like overvoltage, overcurrent, short-circuit protections, but the computer supply is not meant to go into those protection states repeatedly or for longer. These are okay if you know you are not going to trigger those things repeatedly and you just need a simple power rail to run something.
A true bench power supplies however are purposely made for these tasks. They have robust protections and you can trigger them as many times as you like. Also all PC power supplies are switching power supplies, but you can get the bench power supply in both switching type and linear type.
The linear one has much cleaner output voltage compared to switching type in most cases.
I'd recommend not to go this route, and just buy the bench supply, you can get a good one in 4-5k range.
Or you can build your own single output linear power supply very easily for learning purposes.
On 3.3v, 5.0v, 12v rails there are built in protections, like overvoltage, overcurrent, short-circuit protections, but the computer supply is not meant to go into those protection states repeatedly or for longer. These are okay if you know you are not going to trigger those things repeatedly and you just need a simple power rail to run something.
A true bench power supplies however are purposely made for these tasks. They have robust protections and you can trigger them as many times as you like. Also all PC power supplies are switching power supplies, but you can get the bench power supply in both switching type and linear type.
The linear one has much cleaner output voltage compared to switching type in most cases.
I'd recommend not to go this route, and just buy the bench supply, you can get a good one in 4-5k range.
Or you can build your own single output linear power supply very easily for learning purposes.
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