Power supply for bench testing

[Neostar63 10+ year member]

If I were to use a power supply to run an amp from my car in my house what kind whould i need. I know that I would need a power supply that could supply a good deal of amperage. I need to know if it can be any dc powersupply that can supply 12 volts or if it has to be switching or some other thing that I am overlooking.

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[InhumanAcura 5,000+ posts]

You can use a battery and charger

 

[Neostar63 10+ year member]

Will any battery charger do? The amp wont drain the battery or is there a chance of that.

 

[ANeonRider 10+ year member]

You can use a battery and charger

Might not want to do that unless you are gonna use something to suppress the noise present. Most battery chargers provide really really dirty voltage (more than alternators) and the battery won't be able to suppress all of it. A large sized, low ESR/ESL capacitor (1F+) may clean that up a bit, but I haven't really looked into doing it.

 

[Neostar63 10+ year member]

I kind of thought that the whole battery thing was kind of a way to jerry rig it, that is why I was asking about what power supply because I found a few 100 amp DC power supplies. I wanted to make sure they were safe to hook up to my amp.

 

[ANeonRider 10+ year member]

Find out the noise spec on those DC supplies. How much?

 

[Neostar63 10+ year member]

No noise specs listed for the power supplies. I do have a couple of capacitors now that I think about it. By a dirty voltage do you mean like a hum or something, I might be willing to try the battery thing.

 

[ANeonRider 10+ year member]

No I mean a power supply without good regulation (voltage spikes). Voltage spikes kill input stages real good.

 

[Neostar63 10+ year member]

I see. I know someone on here has done this. They posted pics. The search is not working right now. I wonder if they had any problems. The amp i would be using is a pg 500.2 tantrum. According to a post on the site a car battery is not even needed The charger can act as its own powersupply. This is the site.

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/1/2783.html

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

A good regulated DC power supply will be way better in the long run than batteries.

These work OK:

http://www.etronics.com/listproducts.ASP?iStart=11&manaf=&order=&catid=4071&store=&rpc=&prod_type=

Also check Tripp Lite

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif for Astron power supplies...I've used a few, and currently have an RS-20A running my base station radios in the dorm. Never had a problem with overcurrent or overheating problems, they're built like tanks.

http://www.astroncorp.com (I believe)

 

[monte_carlo97 10+ year member]

A good regulated DC power supply will be way better in the long run than batteries.
These work OK:

http://www.etronics.com/listproducts.ASP?iStart=11&manaf=&order=&catid=4071&store=&rpc=&prod_type=

Also check Tripp Lite

they may say pyramid. But i have used a few of those with no problems.