Envox Experimental Zone (EEZ) is an open hardware and open source development website, that creates and shares various open source hardware and software projects using as much as possible open-source tools and technologies.
One of their projects is the programmable bench power supply ‘EEZ H24005’. The goal is to make a reliable, modular, open and programmable power supply, that can be used for various tasks starting with powering breadboard, charge batteries of various types, or to be used as an educational tool and science experiments.
The EEZ H24005 is a DIY power supply unit consists of four PCBs and SMT electronics components except some power resistor, AC/DC adapter, and power regulators. Only two ICs need hot air soldering station to mount, while the remaining parts can be simply mounted with soldering iron.
To build this PSU you will need these tools:
- Soldering iron with conical sloped tip
- Hot air soldering station
- Solder wire 0.25 mm, and 0.7 mm (optionally solder paste, for ICs with exposed power tabs)
- Solder wick / desoldering braid
- Flux
- Magnifying glass with light
- Self-locking tweezers
- Set of tweezers
- Isopropyl alcohol example and paper wipes for cleaning
- PCB holder
In addition to modularity, programmability, openness, and DIY, reliability was one of the key features and design guidelines of the designing process. Because as a sourcing device, the PSU has to be designed in the way that no dangerous oscillation in voltage or current is present over the long period of deployment. That includes border case of turning the PSU on and off, applying or disconnecting load, etc.
Here is some of the main features of H24005:
- Modular design that allows combining modules with various performance and capability and creation of multiple output solution
- Voltage regulation (CV), 10 mV resolution
- Current regulation (CC), 10 mA initial resolution
- Various current single range operation (0-5 A default, 0-3 A or 0-4 A per channel)
- 15-bit data acquisition resolution
- Real-time clock (RTC) with supercap/battery backup
- SD-card as an additional storage
- Ethernet support for remote control
- Simple DC output protection (reverse voltage, over-voltage)
Since it is an open source project, all files, designs, source codes are available at the Github repository. Also a detailed building guide is available at the official website. But if you want to get H24005 but not interested in making it, you can order yours through OSHPark. There is also a CrowdSupply campagin on going.