This is a beautiful combo

[pucho812]

I am copying this from elsewhere and boy does it not disappoint

Here's my take on a benchtop power supply using a vintage variac and matching meters found at a junk store.  And also some new parts.  It has the following features: 
Power switch turns off both hot and neutral.  It seemed useful, but I've never had that capability before.
The selector on the left allows you to either turn off the output from the variac or select one of four different fuses, depending on sensitivity of the load.
The center meter has a custom scale, with most sensitivity in the 0-1 A range, but is logarithmic, so I don't need to switch it out running to 5A.  I made a custom scale for that one.
I built in a +/- linear power supply with five switchable voltage ranges (+/-24, +/- 18, +/-12, +/-9, +/-5, or really any other voltage range selectable by the pots). 500 mA capability on all ranges.  This is intended to be used with pretty much any op-amp.
I included a bias output voltage that will allow me to apply 0-48V bias to external circuitry adjustable with a pot.  The linear voltages have a few hundred microvolts noise according to my DMM.
Thumb screws on most things you may ever need to take off to service. 

 

[pucho812]

Pic 2

 

[pucho812]

Pic # 3

 

[Brian Roth]

Mounting mechanical meters at an angle might through off the accuracy.  I learned that eons ago when using a (cheap Radio Shack) VOM as I watched different readings if the VOM was upright or on its side.

Hmmmmmm....not right now, but I have a very nice old Simpson VOM and will see what differences come up with it vertical or on its side.

But those are great pix!

Bri

 

[fazer]

Nice looking power supply. Very useful voltages and a piece of artwork.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Steam punk?

JR

 

[Whoops]

Gorgeous

 

[Bo Deadly]

Mmm. Using a variac for a variable bench supply is a good idea. I always thought of it as something to sanity test new builds with and work-around gear hardwired for different voltages like 100VAC stuff from Japan. Don't know why I didn't think of that before. And since the variac is not isolated and you need a transformer anyway, then you easily get a bipolar supply by just using a center tapped secondary. But I wonder if this is just using capacitance multipliers or if it's using a special regulator circuit that uses a variable voltage reference sourced from the output of the variac or something?

 

[JohnRoberts]

I have an old and not as pretty variac under my computer desk right now. The main thing I've used it for this century is to provide power to flash program battery powered circuit boards from a wall wart dialed in to make the correct voltage.
===
Back in the day for troubleshooting power amp prototypes we'd use a variac, with an incandescent light bulb current limiter in series. If/when the amp powers up without releasing smoke the light bulb could be bypassed.

JR

 

[pucho812]

Mounting mechanical meters at an angle might through off the accuracy.  I learned that eons ago when using a (cheap Radio Shack) VOM as I watched different readings if the VOM was upright or on its side.

Hmmmmmm....not right now, but I have a very nice old Simpson VOM and will see what differences come up with it vertical or on its side.

But those are great pix!

Bri

I would agree, but it does look like a piece of art

 

[Gold]

Mounting mechanical meters at an angle might through off the accuracy.  I learned that eons ago when using a (cheap Radio Shack) VOM as I watched different readings if the VOM was upright or on its side.

There are stern warnings in the Dolby A manual to avoid parallax when calibrating the units. One of the downsides to using giant VU meters is that parallax becomes an issue. With the giant Weston's I'm using you can see a 0.1dB movement around 0VU.

 

[Scodiddly]

Steam punk?

JR

More of a dieselpunk look, I would say.  Chrome and bakelite instead of brass.

Probably wouldn't be easy to stack my o-scope on top of that, but I'd make room for it on my bench.  Beautiful build.