My new power supply arrived yesterday. It's a typical chinese made 30v 10amp; and works fairly well. No voltage spike on powering on/off. Voltage doesn't drift & matches up with my meters. I went over all solder joints & tested all the caps & everything seems to be ok. (it works well and isn't too loud, no louder than a quiet desktop)
The amp display is a little goofy -- it doesn't display what you set it at, it just shows what is being used - And there is what I want to hack.
I want to hack it so as I turn the coarse/fine knobs it displays what amp I'm setting to.
The other hack I want is to 'auto-switch' between Amps and Milliamps. (something my old power supply let me do manually)
After searching for a suitable amp panel meter, and failing, I came up with a plan to use an arduino & a current sensing module (rated appropriately in 0-5amp and 0-40 amp). Then with a relay switch between the two to gain better resolutions. While I haven't worked out how, my back up plan is to use a better/higher resolution ADC chip so the 0-40 amp module output can be better used...
Has anyone done anything like this?
--
My solder station is an older (2+ years?) 835d ("3 in 1 reflow") -- everything works. Just the biggest problem is that even if I turn off the soldering iron, hot air, & power supply -- the main transformer is still on & generating heat. It's cluttered (small room/desk) & not really easy to reach around to turn off it's master switch. I thought it would be cool if it saw all 3 switches were off, a relay could de-energize & disconnect the transformer. The only problem is then I loose power, so I have no way to energize the relay if one of the 3 is turned back on.
This really isn't nearly as important to me as the power supply; I know I can just get a power strip & flick it off in a more convenient way...
Thanks for your ideas!