by C.Y. Tan 2016
I got really annoyed with the number of power bricks (or wall-warts) that were required power my astrophotography setup:
- LX200 18V power supply.
- SBIG ST8300C 12V power supply.
- Field DeRotator 9V power supply.
- Dew Heater 5V power supply.
- Flat field box 9V power supply.
I decided to consolidate the above into one box but with enough spare outlets for future expansion.
The goal is to build a power distribution unit that replaces all the wall-warts that are necessary for running my astrophotography setup. It should have extra outlets so that it can be used to power other pieces of equipment in the future. All the outlets have to be fused to protect itself as well as the connected equipment.
The power distribution unit is powered by a
The 19.5V from the above supply is connected to an internal fanless HDPLEX 160W ATX DC power supply. The 5V and 12V supplies come directly from the PLEX. The other 9V is linearly regulated from the 12V and the 15V is linearly regulated from the 19.5V input voltage. The available voltage outlets are listed below:
- Three 5V outlets
- Three 12V outlets
- Two 9 V outlets
- One 15 V outlet. I used this to power my LX200 classic. Although the front panel says that the voltage should be 18V, sources on the web recommend that a lower voltage be used to power it. Therefore I have reduced the voltage from 18V to 15V. Note: I was really shocked to measure >20V coming out from the Meade power supply for my LX200!
This is unsupported hardware. Build at your own peril! :)
You can submit questions or bug reports using the issues tab on the right and then click on NEW.
Have fun!
- case The case design for the power distribution unit. It consists of a 3D STL file for the box and a SVG file for the cover. Source code for generating the 3D STL file in OpenScad format is included.
- bom Bill of materials for 1 power distribution unit.
- eagle Eagle schematic and board files.
More information can be found in he README.md files in each directory and the wiki of this project on github.
All the software, documentation, and hardware that I have written is copyright 2016 C.Y. Tan.
All software is released under GPLv3
All documentation is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License or GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
All hardware is released under CERN Hardware Open License v1.2