Maybe I misunderstood the question, but when you speak of running multiple supplies in parallel, are you questioning whether to connect the + and - supply outputs together as well as the grounds? NEVER DO THIS!!!! Connecting the grounds together is no problem and probably will not hurt anything. Grounding is a funny business. Chances are with two or more supplies, they are already grounded together through the panels and mounting rails. I use multiple supplies and have the grounds tied together with two #12 guage wires at the supplies. However, it is my understanding that if you connect together the + or - outputs of multiple supplies that there may be a problem. The power supply output is a low impedance source and any slight difference in output voltages of the multiple + or - supplies may cause a large current flow between them, probably damaging both supplies. I'm not really a power supply guy, I've always just bought them off the shelf, but thats my understanding from engineering school (a very long time ago!) Listen to Larry's and Moe's advice. Moe has a great explanation of star distribution on his website. BTW I built my supplies into a 4 space rack cabinet external to the synth itself. I connect them to the cabinets (right now just one but more are planned) by using large Hubble connectors rated at 20A and #12 gage cable. Once inside the synth cabinet, +,- and ground go to large barrier type terminal blocks and from there to 10 of Pauls power distribution boards. It works great. The only problem is the new requirement for 5V. I will probably leave the existing cabinet alone and wire my second cabinet for the three supplies keeping all the new 5V modules in there.
Message
Re: More than one power supply
2002-12-04 by paulhaneberg
Attachments
- No local attachments were found for this message.