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Aspen Universal Condensate Pump

Universal Peristaltic Condensate Pump
Universal Peristaltic Condensate Pump

Here’s another piece of commercial gear, from an industrial air conditioning unit. These pumps are used to drain the condensate from the evaporator unit, so water doesn’t end up raining down from the ceiling.

Pump Head
Pump Head

This is a peristaltic pump, with a silicone hose forming the pumping element.

Rear Panel
Rear Panel

The test switch & electrical connections are on the back, along with the data label.

Power & Sensor Socket
Power & Sensor Socket

The electrical connections are all on a single 5-pin socket. Along with 240v AC mains, there are a pair of thermistors connected to the unit, which switch the pump on when a 5°C temperature difference across the evaporator coil is detected. When air is cooled, it’s capacity for moisture drops, so the water condenses out on the coil.

Roller Wheel
Roller Wheel

Here the front cover has been removed from the pump, showing the silicone tube & roller wheel. The wheel was originally Cadmium-plated, but exposure to the elements has oxidized this into highly toxic Cadmium Oxide.

Pump Rollers
Pump Rollers

Here you can see the rollers. These pinch the tube at the inlet, and the rotation carries a slug of liquid through the tube to the outlet side.

Pump Tube
Pump Tube

Here’s the tube itself, the main wearing part of the pump. This is replaceable as a spare part.

Motor & Gearbox
Motor & Gearbox

Inside the casing is a shaded-pole motor, connected to a large gearbox, to give the slow rotation for the pump head. The rated speed is 51RPM.

Control PCB
Control PCB

There’s not much to the control PCB. The large resistor forms a voltage dropper, to reduce the mains 240v to a more suitable level for the logic. There’s a TL062C Low-Power JFET Op-Amp & a CD4060BCM 14-stage binary ripple counter forming the logic. The set point is adjustable via the potentiometer.

Pump Triac
Pump Triac

The pump motor is switched via this Z7M SMD triac, not much switching power is needed here as the motor is only a very small shaded-pole type.

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15v Bipolar Supply Testing

Here’s some testing of the first bipolar supply for the Rigol scope. This is the +/-7.5v supply.

Bipolar Supply
Bipolar Supply

Above is the supply built with it’s output filtering. The modules used are a PTN78020W for the positive rail & a PTN78060A for the negative rail.

Under a 1A load across the total 15v output, here’s some scope traces of the ripple on the supply:

+7.5v Rail
+7.5v Rail

Here’s the ripple on the +7.5v rail of the supply, there’s about 75mV of total ripple.

-7.5v Rail
-7.5v Rail

And here’s the -7.5v rail, the ripple on this is slightly lower, at about 50mV. This should be more than satisfactory as the scope has onboard linear regulation after the switching supply.

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13.8v SMPS PSU Build

A while ago I blogged about modifying the output voltage of some surplus Cisco switch power supplies to operate at 13.8v.

Since I was able to score a nice Hammond 1598DSGYPBK ABS project box on eBay, I’ve built one of the supplies into a nice bench unit.

Hammond ABS Case
Hammond ABS Case
Supply Unit
Supply Unit

Above is the supply mounted into the box, I had to slightly trim one edge of the PCB to make everything fit, as it was just a couple of mm too wide. Luckily on the mains side of the board is some space without any copper tracks.

PSU Fan
PSU Fan

These supplies are very high quality & very efficient, however they came from equipment that was force-air cooled. Running the PSU in this box with no cooling resulted in overheating. Because of this I have added a small 12v fan to move some air through the case. The unit runs much cooler now. To allow the air to flow straight through the case, I drilled a row of holes under the front edge as vents.

Output Side
Output Side

Here is the output side of the supply, it uses standard banana jacks for the terminals. I have used crimp terminals here, but they are soldered on instead of crimped to allow for higher current draw. The negative return side of the output is mains earth referenced.

I have tried to measure output ripple on this supply, but with my 10X scope probe, and the scope set to 5mV/Div, the trace barely moves. The output is a very nice & stable DC.

This supply is now running my main radio in the shack, and is small enough to be easily portable when I move my station.

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Precision 10v & 5v Reference

After watching a video over at Scullcom Hobby Electronics on YouTube, I figured I’d build one of these precision references to calibrate my multimeters.

It’s based around a REF102P 10v precision reference & an INA105P precision unity gain differential amplifier.

For full information, check out the video, I won’t go into the details here, just my particular circuit & PCB layout.

In the video, Veroboard is used. I’m not too fond of the stuff personally. I find it far too easy to make mistakes & it never quite looks good enough. To this end I have spun a board in Eagle, as usual.

Precision Ref SCH
Precision Ref SCH – Click to Embiggen

Here’s the schematic layout, the same as is in the video.

Precision Ref BRD
Precision Ref BRD

As usual, the Eagle CAD layout files can be found at the bottom of the post.

And the associated PCB layout. I have added the option to be able to tweak the output, to get a more accurate calibration, which can be added by connecting JP1 on the PCB.

As in the original build, this unit uses pre-built DC-DC converter & Li-Ion charger modules. A handy Eagle library can be found online for these parts.
I have however left off the battery monitor section of the circuit, since I plan to use a protected lithium cell for power. This also allowed me to keep the board size down, & use a single sided layout.

Toner Transfer Paper
Toner Transfer Paper

Here’s the track layout ready to iron onto the copper clad board. I use the popular toner transfer system with special paper from eBay, this stuff has a coating that allows the toner to easily be transferred to the PCB without having to mess about with soaking in water & scraping paper off.

Ironed On
Ironed On

Here’s the paper having just been ironed onto the copper. After waiting for the board to cool off the paper is peeled off, leaving just the toner on the PCB.

Etched PCB
Etched PCB

PCB just out of the etch tank, drilled & with the solder pins for the modules installed. Only one issue with the transfer, in the bottom left corner of the board is visible, a very small section of copper was over etched.
This is easily fixed with a small piece of wire.

Components Populated
Components Populated

Main components populated. The DC-DC converter is set at 24v output, which the linear regulator then drops down to the +15v rail for the reference IC. The linear section of the regulator, along with the LC filter on the output of the switching regulator produce a low-ripple supply.

SMPS Ripple
SMPS Ripple

Here’s the scope reading the AC ripple on the output of the DC-DC converter. Scale is 100mV/Div. Roughly 150mV of ripple is riding on top of the DC rail.

Linear PSU Ripple
Linear PSU Ripple

And here’s the output from the linear regulator, scale of 50mV/Div. Ripple has been reduced to ~15mV for the reference IC.
In total the circuit as built has a power consumption of ~0.5W, most of which is being dissipated as heat in the linear part of the PSU.

[download id=”5583″]

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Wearable Raspberry Pi – Some Adjustments

USB Hub
USB Hub

As the first USB hub I was using was certainly not stable – it would not enumerate between boots & to get it working again would require waiting around 12 hours before applying power, it has been replaced. This is a cheapie eBay USB hub, of the type shown below.

These hubs are fantastic for hobbyists, as the connections for power & data are broken out on the internal PCB into a very convenient row of pads, perfect for integration into many projects.

Breakout Hub
Breakout Hub

I now have two internal spare USB ports, for the inbuilt keyboard/mouse receiver & the GPS receiver I plan to integrate into the build.

These hubs are also made in 7-port versions, however I am not sure if these have the same kind of breakout board internally. As they have the same cable layout, I would assume so.

 

Connector Panel
Connector Panel

Here is a closeup of the back of the connectors, showing a couple of additions.

I have added a pair of 470µF capacitors across the power rails, to further smooth out the ripple in the switching power supply, as I was having noise issues on the display.

Also, there is a new reset button added between the main interface connectors, which will be wired into the pair of pads that the Raspberry Pi has to reset the CPU.
This can be used as a power switch in the event the Pi is powered down when not in use & also to reset the unit if it becomes unresponsive.

 

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Wearable Raspberry Pi Part 2.5 – Battery Pack PCM

Battery PCM
Battery PCM

The final part for the battery pack has finally arrived, the PCM boards. These modules protect the cells by cutting off the power at overcharge, undercharge & overcurrent. Each cell is connected individually on the right, 12v power appears on the left connections. These modules also ensure that all the cells in the pack are balanced.

 

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Wearable Raspberry Pi SMPS Modifications

SMPS Mods
SMPS Mods

A few modifications were required to the SMPS modules to make the power rails stable enough to run the Pi & it’s monitor. Without these the rails were so noisy that instability was being caused.

I have replaced the 100µF output capacitors & replaced them with 35v 4700µF caps. This provides a much lower output ripple.

There are also heatsinks attached to the converter ICs to help spread the heat.

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Wearable Raspberry Pi Part 2 – Power Supply

All Fitted
All Fitted

Progress is finally starting on the power supply unit for the Pi, fitted into the same case style as the Pi itself, this is an 8Ah Li-Poly battery pack with built in voltage regulation.

Regulator Boards
Regulator Boards

Here are the regulators, fixed to the top of the enclosure. These provide the 12v & 5v power rails for the Pi unit, at a max 3A per rail.

Battery Pack
Battery Pack

In the main body of the case the battery pack is fitted. This is made up of 4 3-cell Li-Poly RC battery packs, rated at 2Ah each. All wired in parallel this will provide a total of 8Ah at 12.6v when fully charged.

Powered Up
Powered Up

Here the regulators are powered up from a 13v supply for testing. I have discovered at full load these modules have very bad ripple, so I will be adding extra smoothing capacitors to the power rails to compensate for this.

I/O
I/O

Here are the connectors on the top of the unit, outputting the two power rails to the Pi & the DC barrel jack that will be used to charge the pack.