Health is still an issue, even after my 3rd stroke early in 2017. The last couple of months I had to fight against being extremely tired, slept more than 15 hours a day and in between often my brain was unable to work on stuff in my workshop and my other projects related to the build from scratch of my sailboat model I call Carina. today I want to focus on reporting advances and activities related to my electronic workbench in general and my panel.I did modify what used to be my electronics corner and has been reworked to store stuff, mainly screws of any kind in glasses as shown. This way I can see the kind of screws available there and choose the appropriate one.
Doing window shopping in the Internet I found 2 devices that I felt would be of interest for my electronics workbench:
Here the real device as it looks like:
This will be used to monitor the PC power supply that generates all the tensions I have available in my workshop. It is for AC monitoring. i have no need for it, but I thought it would be nice to have this values displayed .
This device displays the voltage and current of a DC line and seeing it brought to my mind to have the individual voltage sources of my display monitored and the values displayed on this screens:
This was my first shot as to how to expand my panel to include this displays. As you can see, above each set of colored receptacles the display that will show the voltage and current values as it monitors those. The displays have to be placed at 2 levels as the original panel design had the receptacles too close to each other.
Here the drawing from the provider that shows how the displays have to be connected to monitor the DC line:
Seeing this, that I had already seen online, I did a first sketch as to how the circuit of the panel had to be modified to add the monitoring capability of this displays:
Just doing this sketch I noticed "Houston, there is a problem"! The sketch showed to me, what I could have seen already online, that monitoring the voltage was not a problem, but monitoring the current represents a challenge!
To monitor the voltage all I have to do is connect the "yellow line" of each display to the line that goes to the colored receptacles on the panel. But monitoring the current meant I had to modify my whole scheme for implementing the ground. In my current panel the GND is common to all voltages and so I have provided 6 black colored receptacles on both sides of the panel and 12 screwable GND connectors which are based on the top left of the panel, next to the 5 screwable connectors for the "positive lines of each voltage. You see the to the right of the GND ones! Part of the reason for this problem is that the displays monitor the current using the negative pole.
This was my second design for the modified panel that enables me to place 2 columns of 3 black receptacles bellow each display. Fortunately I just hat to turn around the wooden plate expected to be used, as the displays where at the center of the wooden plate. Compare this foto with the one 4 fotos earlier! While this does solve the problem of getting the areas needed for the black receptacles it left me with the need to rebuild the rather complex physical circuit on the rear side of the current front plate of the panel! searching for support in a couple of electronic forums I got the advice about having to have the ground lines of each tension to be "floating" to one another! Knowing a bit about potential issues with ground planes in electronics and knowing that devices usually have to be grounded with earth to prevent the user from damage, I felt qualified enough to ask the proper questions. 95% is cleared so far. I can operate the panel fed from the modified PC power supply. What is left is if the tension doubler used to generate the 24 VD from 12 VDC.
Finally yesterday I found a source for a black colored plate, 570 x 115 x 3 mm that will replace the current black front plate of my panel. I have decided to replace it as it will be sized 3.5 cm higher and reach on the left side to the place were battery charger pliers can be connected to where the wooden plate on the top of the current panl ends to the right. This way I will be able to place black receptacles coming from the current monitoring of the displays next to the colored ones. Having more physical room between the receptacles of the different tensions I will have the space next to the switch to place an RGB LED that will indicate when ON, that the switch is in the ON position. Each of this LED will have the color corresponding to the tension!