How does one hook up a lab power supply to audio equipment?

[osd1]

Hey now.

I am building my first ever electronics project (pass b5) and I was wondering how in the hell one hooks up an external lap power supply, such as a MASTECH HY1803D to a preamp?

I see the positive and negative outputs on the front of the power supply. Being heavily heavily tattooed I have seen power supplies work tattoo machines, and I understand the general way they work. I get the positive lead goes into the positive lead, the negative lead goes into the negative lead, but what about on the pre amp side of things (or DAC, or phono stage, etc.) Do they make some kind of adapter? Something where the leads from the power supply go straight into the adapter and the adapter has a 1/8 pin on it to fit into the source? Or do I just solder directly to the board?

 

[Enzo]

If you want to power up a circuit you are making without building a power supply just for that, a bench supply is useful. If there is no existing power supply circuit, you connect the bench supply to the same places that would have gone. Most of us use clip leads - wires with clips on the ends. You could solder wires to your board, and put a banana plug on the other end to plug into your bench supply. Sometimes I just make a small loop of bare wire and solder that to the board, the loop makes a handy place to clip on.

How permanent do you want it? Are you expecting to power this up this way for a long while - like a lengthy development program? Or is this just for today to see if it works before moving on?

One possible issue here though. This appears to be a single supply you can set up to 18v. I don't know what preamp you are building, but most anything these days uses op amaps, and they generally are powered by a split supply - 15v is typical. So there is a +15v supply and a -15v supply. To power those, you would need TWO of these bench supplies. Or a different supply with two separate power supplies inside.

Your bench supply output is what we might refer to as floating. It has a positive and a negative terminal. SO when I connect it to a circuit, I can have either positive or negative voltage simply by connecting the other terminal to ground. If I connect the black post to ground of my circuit, then the red post is a positive supply. If I connect the red post to ground, then the black post is a negative supply.

If your circuit is a single sided transistor circuit needing 18v or less, then this bench unit would work by itself.

 

[osd1]

If you want to power up a circuit you are making without building a power supply just for that, a bench supply is useful. If there is no existing power supply circuit, you connect the bench supply to the same places that would have gone. Most of us use clip leads - wires with clips on the ends. You could solder wires to your board, and put a banana plug on the other end to plug into your bench supply. Sometimes I just make a small loop of bare wire and solder that to the board, the loop makes a handy place to clip on.

How permanent do you want it? Are you expecting to power this up this way for a long while - like a lengthy development program? Or is this just for today to see if it works before moving on?

One possible issue here though. This appears to be a single supply you can set up to 18v. I don't know what preamp you are building, but most anything these days uses op amaps, and they generally are powered by a split supply - 15v is typical. So there is a +15v supply and a -15v supply. To power those, you would need TWO of these bench supplies. Or a different supply with two separate power supplies inside.

Your bench supply output is what we might refer to as floating. It has a positive and a negative terminal. SO when I connect it to a circuit, I can have either positive or negative voltage simply by connecting the other terminal to ground. If I connect the black post to ground of my circuit, then the red post is a positive supply. If I connect the red post to ground, then the black post is a negative supply.

If your circuit is a single sided transistor circuit needing 18v or less, then this bench unit would work by itself.

im building a nelson pass b5 preamp- calls for 18v to 24v dc.

 

[Enzo]

I am not a hifi guy, I work in pro audio, so I am not familiar with it. can you link a schematic for this?

If it only needs a single supply then one of these units ought to work.

 

[dangus]

If you want a plug on the case for DC, XLR jacks with more than 3 pins are a reasonable choice. While you may not need 4 (or more) pins, it's a very good idea not to use the same connector for power as is normally used for audio, and if you only need one polarity, you can double up the pins for lower resistance and greater reliability.

When it comes to connecting to a board, it's nicer to bring the wires to a connector, rather than soldering them directly. Barrier terminal strips can be used with fork or ring terminals crimped to the wires; it's not the most elegant solution, but the crimp tools are common, and it forms an electrically and mechanically solid connection. 0.1" pitch header pins are better in many ways, but the contacts require special crimp tools, which are normally very expensive. However, there appear to be inexpensive Chinese tools available now: see KF2510 on eBay.