In progress: building the PSU2 +/- 15V power supply

[waldenpotato]

I'm in the process of building the PSU2 +/- 15V power supply. I designed a Front Panel Express panel for this because I don't have a drill press or any other types of drills. One interesting thing I'm doing with this power supply is bringing the Oakley Bus to a couple of TRS sockets that will allow me to connect the bus between different cases.

[waldenpotato]

I wired the distribution boards, grounding post, and grounding banana socket this weekend. It's working. The next step will be wiring the trs sockets to the bus.

[Synthbuilder]

Thank you for letting us see your PSU build. This is good work.

Can I make a couple of suggestions?

I'd recommend that the 0V bond to the panel (and the 4mm socket) be connected to one of the 0V terminals on the PSU2 board rather than the Dizzy. If you just had one Dizzy, the earth blade terminal on the Dizzy would be the one to use, but since you have two Dizzies, then use the PSU2's 0V terminal instead.

If you decide to make another panel I'd look to move the PSU2 board nearer the power inlet and switch, and slightly up a bit. Moving it nearer to the switches reduces the length of the wiring that carries the noisy AC power input, and also means that the wiring to your Dizzies is slightly shorter. Moving the PSU2 board up a bit allows the lower regulator more metal around it which should keep it cooler, and again reduces the wiring length to the Dizzies.

It'll work fine as it is though, so you don't have to change this one.

[waldenpotato]

It'll work fine as it is though, so you don't have to change this one.

I can change the 0V panel bonding to the PSU2 instead of the dizzy board. Does it matter if I use 0VA or 0VB?

For the next power supply I'll move the boards around based on your suggestions.

Thanks for the suggestions, Tony.

[Synthbuilder]

Does it matter if I use 0VA or 0VB?

Either will do.

[waldenpotato]

I believe the power supply is done now. I moved the panel 0V bond connection to 0VA of the power supply. I also finished wiring and connecting both dizzy buses together and then to the two TRS panel jacks.

Let me know if your have any other good suggestions. Like, is it okay to connect the two dizzy buses? ... and then is it okay to connect them to the front panel like this?

[Synthbuilder]

... is it okay to connect the two dizzy buses? ... and then is it okay to connect them to the front panel like this?

It will probably work just fine.

The gate connection is unaffected by the length of the wiring (within reason). But the CV connection is a little more fussy. If the resistance of all the connections between source (say your midi-CV convertor) and the controlled module (say a VCO) is too big, you'll get scaling errors (ie. your module will go out of tune at high frequencies). But then this is true of any patch cable too. A 10m long thin patch cable isn't such a good idea for controlling the pitch of a VCO for example.

In my own system I keep the midi-CV module in the same box as the VCOs. The CV simply goes to the single Dizzy that then drives the VCOs. That way the lead length carrying pitch CV is kept short. And running the VCOs and midi convertor in the same box with the same PSU ensures that any 0V discrepancies are kept to a minimum.

[waldenpotato]

It will probably work just fine.

Let's see if I ever use the bus between cases! I don't really have any good use cases right now - just wanted to pack in as many features and flexibility as possible. My first case will be an ASV using MOTM power connectors and then a few MU modules using MU power connectors. But that might change in the future.