HP 6824A lab power supply

As I got hold of two Tono Theta 7000E communications terminals, I grew a need for a stable power supply: The Tono’s use an external power supply for 12V DC, a fuse is in place at 2A. Digging in the Old Stack I found a power supply I got donated from Els, a good friend (she kept the skeleton with the party hat for herself 🙁 ), it’s a brand old HP 6824A DC Power Supply Amplifier! Should do the trick ..

Basically, it’s a DC power supply and amplifier with power output ranging from -50V to +50V DC, at 0 to 1.0A. Not quite a lot, but it will do the trick of powering one Tono. One thing that makes it special, is that the voltage gain can be set very accurately. There is a universe of other features that makes this power supply very suitable for laboratory environments, but that’s a bit beyond my knowledge. Check the Manual if you are interested.

The front is featuring a large indicator, displaying voltage (-60V to +60V) and current (-1.2A to +1.2A DC). The black switch top right is used to switch the operating mode between Power Supply and Amplifier. The black switch bottom left is used for the central indicator, to select DC Amps, DC Volts or AC volts to be displayed on the center indicator. The black dial bottom right is the voltage adjuster, which is two part: the outer dial is used to adjust voltage, and inner dial is used to fine tune that voltage by about 1%. Bottom are the connection terminals, with mainly the red “output” terminal and black “ground” terminals being used.

The back of the unit is used to control, program and feed the unit to connect with other units or to run certain powercycle programs.

Turning it on makes quite some noise, and I was a bit shaky to connect anything to it due to it’s untested state we found it in. So first check all outpus with a multimeter, and verify that the center indicator indicates the right voltage or current. Luckily, it did. But, I still have to check the voltage output every time I turn on the PSU, who knows someone turned the voltage output gain dials!

The unit can be used for so much more than just finetuned 12V DC output, but I simply don’t have the applications for it. So I bought another DC PSU, with 4A at 13.8V. That should be enough to power both Tono’s and something more with just one power supply unit. Now to make nice leads and a power distribution board ..