Electronic for Chemists - Electric Bench Lab
This book is the third in a series of publications aimed at introducing chemists and physicists to the design of laboratory equipment in order to create an autonomous and low-cost "ChemLab". Beyond the economic reason, the main purpose of this project is to serve as an educational support, to initiate a frugal approach to innovation (consumption of less energy or renewable energy sources) and finally to promote the reuse of obsolete components or objects.
For those engaged in electronic projects, a variable power supply bench is an essential tool. Typically, a bench power supply provides voltage to power equipment, a circuit board or an electronic sensor. When evaluating, testing or designing a new circuit or device, these benches are required to provide the specific voltages to power them and confirm that the device is working as intended.
Depending on the requirements and the nature of the equipment, the voltage may be direct (DC), pulse-width modulated (PWM), sinusoidal, square, triangular, etc. The voltage may range from a few volts (typically 3.3 or 5 V) to several tens of volts (around 40 V), either fixed by the equipment or adjustable by the operator. Ideally, it would also be possible to set the current independently of the voltage.
Dedicated to the power bench lab, this book covers the basics of building the smart power supplies needed to make complex circuits work. On the pedagogical side, the knowledge in this book is related to power supplies; the design of a suitable divider resistor bridge with MOSFET and AOP; the use of LM78xx voltage regulators; DC-DC buck converters; current generators; variable PWM and other waveform generators with astable circuits; and the management of BLDC motors.
Let's not forget that we cannot expect a chemist to become an expert in electronics and data processing ... However, we can educate him or her in the simple and basic principles. We invite chemists to participate in the open source movements to enrich himself and the community of "hackers" and "doers". In this sense, this 3rd book has been written in the hope that readers will fill in the missing pages!