Constant current power supply

[chopnhack]

Designspark PCB 6.0

Have you had to create any of your own components with Designspark? Is it easy to do? How do you like the program overall?

 

[Lamma]

Have you had to create any of your own components with Designspark? Is it easy to do? How do you like the program overall?

I haven't created any components yet , but I must say from a complete layman's perspective I don't find that process very straight forward. I just make the shapes and add them on the silkscreen layer so I know which components go where. I have looked everywhere for a freeware PCB design program and this one is best suited to my needs by far. Maybe there are better software but then it won't be freeware, and some cost a heap.

 

[Lamma]

OK guys , hit a bit of a bump here. My power supply has been built and is done. First time I hook it up the voltmeter shows about 0.54V and the ammeter doesn't even move when I turn the dial on the 10k pot. I made some changes on Kris's design though . I couldn't find the 2 x 1Ω , 10W resistors in parallel , RE1 and RE2 , so I swapped them for 5 x 0.1Ω , 5W resistors in series. I added a voltmeter between CN1 and CN2 and an ammeter in series with CN1. Any ideas why nothing is happening? Did I do something wrong or is one of my parts defective? If so so any ideas on which part to replace maybe? See the final PCB layout attached.

 

[chopnhack]

OK guys , hit a bit of a bump here. My power supply has been built and is done. First time I hook it up the voltmeter shows about 0.54V and the ammeter doesn't even move when I turn the dial on the 10k pot. I made some changes on Kris's design though . I couldn't find the 2 x 1Ω , 10W resistors in parallel , RE1 and RE2 , so I swapped them for 5 x 0.1Ω , 5W resistors in series. I added a voltmeter between CN1 and CN2 and an ammeter in series with CN1. Any ideas why nothing is happening? Did I do something wrong or is one of my parts defective? If so so any ideas on which part to replace maybe? See the final PCB layout attached.

Do you have a schematic of your changes? Some voltmeters may require a reference voltage outside of the circuit to function properly.

 

[Lamma]

Do you have a schematic of your changes? Some voltmeters may require a reference voltage outside of the circuit to function properly.

No I didn't make one . You can see the schematic on post #8. I just added the voltmeter and ammeter and changed the resistors. I checked the voltage with mt multimeter , that's why I know it's 0.54V. Maybe I'm missing a grounding issue somewhere?

 

[Lamma]

OK so I found some of the problem . The diode was backward. Fixed that and now the power supply outputs a constant 4V and still turning the dial on the pot does nothing when I hook up a load. Any ideas anybody?