centralized power supply

[John Speth]

At 08:24 AM 6/6/97 -0500, you wrote:
>electro (08:32 AM 6/6/97 -0400) wrote:
>
>>just wanted someone else's opinion of whether the following is a good
>>idea or not. I was thinking of getting a super-nice 3-5Amp 12VDC power
>>supply from International Power then building a 1Urack space
>>distribution panel with coax connectors to power all the wall-wart gear
>>in a clean fashion (keeping the current requirement in mind). Do you
>>think this might introduce cross-talk/noise/hum?
>
>This had come up before, I thought it was here on DIY, but it might of been
>on Electronica.
>
>When I was out playing around all the time, I did this with great results.
>I had a bunch of gear that used wall warts and got sick of the fact that I
>had to hack a way to fit all the warts into power strips in a rack case.
>
>Regulate it well, filter the front end, and use high quality parts. Go for
it.

I think a real commercial product along the above lines would be great.  I
had a vision in my head of a "vendor" producing a 19 inch power supply
module which is completely configurable (switches, plugs, or whatever).  

Specifically, you have this fat rackable power supply box capable of
supplying power to, let's say 10 devices.  On the front is a power switch
and on the back is 10 standard 2 terminal connectors.  These connectors
would be unlike any others because they carry power and you wouldn't want
the temptation of plugging in the wrong thing.  Anyway, to these connectors
you'd plug in custom cables - "standard" connector on one end and one of a
variety power connectors on the other wired for +/-, -/+, big, small, etc.
The "vendor" of the box would sell these or you would make them yourself
(simple).  The cables would then plug to your various rack modules power
inputs.  To configure the power output, you'd open the box up, set switches
or jumpers controlling voltage, max current, and maybe polarity (could be
handled easily by the cabling) - one each for every output.  Internally,
the box would have a high quality, very beefy, well regulated, well cooled
linear power supply capable of providing whatever voltages and currents
you'd need all configurable with switches or jumpers.  No more wall warts!

A well engineered unit probably would get better results than any litter of
wall warts.

That's my dream.

John Speth (johns at oei.com)
Object Engineering, Inc.
Vancouver, WA