My semi-DIY 51X PSU

[thelivingroom]

In December I bought the last 51X rack that Cemal had in stock, but the PSU’s have been hard to come by, so one night while laying in bed I made the impulse decision to order two Kraftwerk supplies and heat sinks from JLM and tackle my own build. By using two I’m able to have plenty of wiggle room across two racks at 3A/rail, with one set up for +/-16v on a 15vac secondary transformer, and the other +/-24v on a 22vac, both Hammond 1182 series. It was a lot of tedious planning and work, and it wasn’t cheap, but it feels very satisfying!

For the enclosure I wanted something that was non-rack mount, aluminum, nice enough looking, and didn’t cost a fortune. Finding that was more of a challenge than I expected. After obsessing for days over the potential candidates, sizes, and parts layouts, I decided on a Bud Industries WA-1542. I liked the shape, the louvered vents, metallic grey color, and classy white strap handle. It comes with an attached rear panel and removable front, but I wanted the rear to be removable for easier assembly and maintenance, so I cut it out just inside of the lip bracing it was affixed to, drilled and tapped holes in the lip, used the front panel it came with on the rear, and designed a new one for the front. The LED’s and power switch can be unplugged for front panel removal using connectors I robbed from my RC plane parts. The yellow ones are Amass MR60 (gold-plated and 60A rating) and the little red ones on the LED leads are JST. I attached the genders for the power switch plugs opposite from each other so with the front panel off I can plug them into each other to power it up for troubleshooting. I left the transformer connection wires long enough so the rear panel can still lay down flat behind the enclosure, and made extensions for the rectifier wires and star ground to be connected when it’s removed. This made testing and setting the voltages a breeze.

Thank you @JLM Audio for the supplies, parts, and questions answered, @jsteiger for the 7C wire and Heycos, and all of you in here for the various bits of inspiration.

It’s quiet and barely gets warm, so overall feeling very satisfied!

 

[[silent:arts]]

Wow. Very nice and clean build, congrats.

 

[thelivingroom]

Wow. Very nice and clean build, congrats.

Thanks Volker! Now I need to save up for a few of your V672X’s.