High quality PCB Services https://pcbway.com Join me in this video where we take a closer look at the custom Power Distribution Unit I designed to feed power into the different devices on my trinocular microscope setup: 12V for the monitor, 12V for the camera, 5V for the LED lights..

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#VoltLink #Microscope #PDU

Welcome to a new video, this time it’s a project video, one that I have been wanting to build for a long time, well about as long as I’ve had my trinocular microscope. This microscope has served me well for a few years but it has one annoying thing, the fact that it uses 3 different power adapters: one to supply power to the camera, one for the monitor and another one for the LED lights. This obviously takes up 3 different sockets on my extension lead and creates a mess of wires.

I’ve always wanted to fix this issue but I guess it was just too simple to be bothered to work on this, until a couple of weeks ago, when I finally decided to do it. So this is my solution, I call this the Microscope Power Distribution Unit and this module takes in a 12V DC input via this input dc jack, I put in some bulk storage capacitance 220uF and a 0.1uF for filtering, then I feed the power into 3 individual PTCs for protection, these are 16V 1.5A which in turn feed into 3 output channels that can either be configured with a dc-dc converter to step the voltage down and I’ve used the classical 3 pin footprint on these, we have input on the left, gnd in the middle pin, output on the right.

There are a bunch of different manufacturers offering DC-DC converters in this type of package. I just picked one that was available at my local distributor to step the voltage down to 5V on this channel. Then I have these other two connected in bypass mode, there is a little jumper on the back to do that, so I’ll be having 12V on these channels , minus a small insignificant voltage drop on the PTCs. And I also have an LED connected to each output to signal power is present.

I designed these PCBs in Kicad and ordered a set of 5pcs from PCBWay.com which are the official provider of printed circuit boards for the Voltlog channel. Right now PCBWay are running their 5th annual PCB design contest so if you have some pcb design that you would like to submit, you’ll have a chance at winning some very interesting cash prizes.

I went with green soldermask which is probably my favorite and ENIG gold plating which makes it look very nice. In terms of shape and size, I designed this to fit a cheap enclosure which I think I got off aliexpress, I will be placing a link to this in the description of the video.

I didn’t get a stencil for this PCB. I thought it would be too much trouble to apply paste with a stencil, then I have to clean the tools and the stencil when I could just manually cover this small number of pads with a solder paste syringe like I have here. Same as always I soldered this on my trusty hot plate.

I’m glad that I got the PCB size right, because I didn’t have an exact drawing of this cheap enclosure, I just took some manual measurements and hoped for the best but the holes are aligned, there is enough clearance on the outline of the PCB, everything seems good. I just needed to dremel out some holes for the dc barrel jack connectors.

So this is how everything goes together, I’m probably going to use some double sided tape to attach this to the back or some zip ties, I now have a single power adapter and a good quality one from meanwell, I got this model which is rated for 12V 3.3A which is more than what I need but it’s what was available in stock for next day delivery. A single cable feed into the power distribution unit and then I use these shorter dc-jack connections to feed individual channels into the monitor, camera and lights. Links for these short dc-jack pigtails will be in the description below the video.

I’m happy with how the PCB turned out, it not only serves this specific purpose but can also be used for other projects by equipping it with various dc-dc converters to generate different voltages and same as always this is an open-source project, you will find the sources for the kicad project shared on my github so you are welcomed to order your own PCBs or just design and build variations of this design.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Woun73aIcT0