Power Supply For Tube Circuit Development

[ZeusMC]

Hi all,
Are there any alternatives to the Heathkit Ip-17 regulated high voltage dc power supply?
Thanks.
Peter.

[K O'Connor]

Hi Guys

Bench power supplies are a great convenience if you do a lot of tinkering BUT the PSU has to be of a "reasonable" sort inasmuch as it should cover voltages and currents you are actually likely to use.

For example, if you do a lot of low-voltage solid-state building, say as a pedal builder, a 0-15V supply rated at 1A may be ample. For split-rail tinkering you would want +/-V out. if you only build pedals then a 9V supply will suffice and this might be a simple wall-wart.

For tube tinkering, you need a heater supply of 6V or 12V and this can be AC or DC. For either, you may want the ability to apply a DC-stand-off as TUT3 shows.You might want to use the 6/12V arrangement shown in TUT4, which London Power uses in its amps and kits. How much current any of this provides depends on the nature of what you want to experiment with or envision actually building.

The plate supply takes more consideration. if you are going to build low-wattage amps, then having plate voltage over 500V may be excessive and lead to a lot of wasted heat. Similarly, if you are building things up to 50W and no higher, then having much more than 350mA is excessive, too. Modern supplies will use semiconductor regulators but these should not be "hard"; rather, they should be "soft". Any real amp you build will lack active regulation so depending on it too much for testing may suggest parameters for the product PT etc that are not quite right.

Screen supplies can be derived from plate or be fully separate if they must be widely lower voltages.

In any case, I would be inclined to build my own bench supply rather than buy one. There are many more details to consider.

Have fun