Super wide range PSU

Hi guys,

A project I work on has several variants, and they're mainly due to input power supply differences. Low voltage AC/DC units, 110V units, 230V units etc.

I'm trying to think of a way to consolidate the power supplies so I have a single unit that can accept a super wide input supply of anything within the ranges of 1 and 2 combined:

1. 12V -24V DC
2. and 90-264VAC (EDIT: revised from 12 - 230VAC)

Output is 5-6V, 2W or so.

Its gotta be cheap, and as small as possible. I dont even know if this is possible?

My only thought of how to do it right now would be some sort of dual supply onboard, one for high AC, and one for low AC/DC, and a switching selector circuitry which selects which supply to use dependant on the input. If that makes sense.

If anyone has any ideas I'd greatly appreciate it.

I think an input selector is the way to go - you could have it on the front panel. Should be possible to build some kind of lockout so it won't work if you've selected the wrong voltage too.
I'm intrigued - 12 - 230VAC - does that include all the voltages in-between?
I'd do it it by having a regulator that accepts 12-24VDC, and having it's input switchable between external input or an internal supply. Then (if I've read you right) a rectifier/smoothing cap for the lower AC voltages, eg 12V, so that can be switched to the input, then a power transformer to work with the high AC voltages such as 230VAC, so that can be switched in to supply the rectifier. Use one that can work with a range of input voltages to cover international mains voltages, have a switch for those.
Not sure about mid-range AC voltages - you could use a power transformer with higher voltage secondaries, so if you had some some strange input like 50VAC you would still only get around 12V or whatever out.
If you use relays for the switching you don't have to worry about mixed and clunky panel switches, just have a rotary one.
The other thing that occurs to me is, for the high voltage AC side, you could find a wall-wart that works in all countries, let its SMP handle the input voltage differences. You could still feed it into your linear regulator so the output is consistent across all inputs.

Hope this helps

Two devices come to mind, combining them would be costly and not small. Individually they're cheap & small.
1. A car USB charger, 12-??VDC. You may have to disassemble a few to find one that goes up to 24VDC (hint: check the data sheet of the regulator IC inside).
2. A phone USB charger, small & cheap, 110-240VAC. Get a decent brand as the knock offs can be very dangerous.

Define oxymoron; a super wide very cheap power supply.
Did I mention it needs to fit in the old box and should be running by Friday. Oh it is Friday. Funny that.

You will need isolation.
220vac becomes 350vdc so you need 12v to 350v ac & dc.
All you parts need to work at 12V and large currents and 350V and small currents.
And 12V really meals 10V. (low line)
And 220Vac high line will make 400Vdc. So 10V through 400V.

Please review how many unites you produce every year and where (what voltage) they go to.
example: 500 unites @ 12V, 12 unites @ 24V, 7 unites @ 48V, 900 @ 110Vac, 29 @ 220Vac
The 12-24V is simple and it could be extended to 12-48.
The 110/220 is simple and maybe it could be pushed to 48-220 with bigger parts.

This is a marketing wet dream. Any voltage and cut the price.

Heh, I thought I'd get these types of responses. Trust me, I've also had the same thoughts, with just as much scepticism. But the engineer in me is strangely intrigued by it, and you gotta admit, to get it right would be pretty cool.

An easy route would be to have two separate units, a mains unit (with universal AC in), and a DC unit (10-60V). The difficult part is combining them.

There are some close ones though...

https://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/DN06058-D.PDF
https://www.ti.com/lit/ug/tidu389/tidu389.pdf

Many/some of the "off line" switcher chips will need more than 12V to set started.

Here is a buck down switcher. No isolation. 700V switch. Have used to 600Vdc. I can't remember its minimum starting voltage. I once used this to take 40-600v and buck down to 12V. Then used a simple two transistor one transformer oscillator to hop across the isolation.

So what exactly is the point being there are no standardized plug and socket sets for 12 volt DC to 240 VAC power nor are there any common power sources that put out that wide of voltage range intentionally.

Knowing what the power source is and what is being powered would make world of difference in how the reply's go here.

TcmTech:
You beat me to the response. There is absolutely no voltage source which will have such a wide range.
And there is no plug designed for it either

Last time I was given a job like this:
There was a 110V version, a 220V, 440V and a 48V and a 12-24 version.
The 110 and 220 was one jumper difference.
The 440 was a problem.
We had a big problem with people applying 220 or 440 (408) into the 110 product.

Cicero said:

But the engineer in me is strangely intrigued by it, and you gotta admit, to get it right would be pretty cool.

Click to expand...

Bravo Cicero! Engineering of any discipline doesn't advance by just re-building the same old designs that have been done 1000 times before. That's just technical work.
Engineering needs to continue to push the boundaries in features and cost. I always try to specify just a little bit more than conventional technology and wisdom predict - and often times I fail but sometimes I achieve.

Sure, you may be asking for a bit too much with today's available parts and ideas, and maybe we can laugh at what you hope to spend. It is very likely that you will not be able to make a universal-input power supply that is small, reliable and affordable. But nobody on earth ever will if nobody asks or tries!

"We choose to go to the moon and do those other things, not because it is easy, but because it is hard..." -JFK

Cicero and Rich, real engineers.

Then there are those that think the moon landing was filmed in "area-51" on a sound stage. God save us from them.

ronsimpson said:

Then there are those that think the moon landing was filmed in "area-51" on a sound stage. God save us from them.

Click to expand...

Hugh??

Problem is, nobody can repeat what Apollo 11 did. With their very limited computing power....

How come with all the stuff we know now compared to 1969...we canno't put a Man on the Moon again ?


Thinking here.

Regards,
tv

I think it could be done with a buck converter followed by a tracking linear regulator, but it would probably be a home brew.

The iGo line of power supplies for laptops, can effectively take auto to airplaine input which, I think is 12 to 24 VDC. Lighter or airplane power sockets. The airplae stuff usually has a make before break connection scheme, so the pins aren't hot. i.e. No sparks.

Then you have the standard 85 to 285 (possibly). The 85 takes care of 100 V in Japan and 285 takes care of 277,

They have separate inputs, one box.

tcmtech said:

So what exactly is the point being there are no standardized plug and socket sets for 12 volt DC to 240 VAC power nor are there any common power sources that put out that wide of voltage range intentionally.

Knowing what the power source is and what is being powered would make world of difference in how the reply's go here.

Click to expand...

schmitt trigger said:

TcmTech:
You beat me to the response. There is absolutely no voltage source which will have such a wide range.
And there is no plug designed for it either

Click to expand...

ronsimpson said:

Last time I was given a job like this:
There was a 110V version, a 220V, 440V and a 48V and a 12-24 version.
The 110 and 220 was one jumper difference.
The 440 was a problem.
We had a big problem with people applying 220 or 440 (408) into the 110 product.

Click to expand...

The point is that in a factory/manufacturing environment, having to now have several products with the same function but just different power supplies makes for a whole bunch of admin and hassle. And its exactly whats happening, a 110V version, 220V, 48V, 12V etc. Each one of those is a separate product, a separate ordering number, separate paperwork, BOM, manufacturing times, separate storage bins etc etc etc. This has nothing to do with standard plugs. So I've just asked for a bit of input, a light hearted question (because I understand its not easy) to try and create a single product that would be dead simple from a manufacturing point of view (there's only one version), and that you can give to someone and say, "Here, power this thing from virtually whatever you like."

Universal AC input (90-264VAC) is easy now, and 10-80VDC is also easy nowadays. But imagine being able to combine those. Yeah its a pipe dream, but hell, why not try.

ronv said:

I think it could be done with a buck converter followed by a tracking linear regulator, but it would probably be a home brew.

Click to expand...

KeepItSimpleStupid said:

The iGo line of power supplies for laptops, can effectively take auto to airplaine input which, I think is 12 to 24 VDC. Lighter or airplane power sockets. The airplae stuff usually has a make before break connection scheme, so the pins aren't hot. i.e. No sparks.

Then you have the standard 85 to 285 (possibly). The 85 takes care of 100 V in Japan and 285 takes care of 277,

They have separate inputs, one box.

Click to expand...

Thanks guys, will check it out.

And there was me thinking this was something you wanted for your tool box to lug around from site to site, where they all have these variants of some equipment with these different power sources you needed to connect to. "the project I work on" doesn't mean the same thing thing to different people!
Makes my response look a bit silly really. The explanation you've just given would have been useful up at the top, would have got you more helpful answers from the start.

tvtech said:

Hugh??

Problem is, nobody can repeat what Apollo 11 did. With their very limited computing power....

How come with all the stuff we know now compared to 1969...we canno't put a Man on the Moon again ?


Thinking here.

Regards,
tv

Click to expand...

'Cuz the US gov't won't fund NASA to do it. Everybody knows that!

throbscottle said:

And there was me thinking this was something you wanted for your tool box to lug around from site to site, where they all have these variants of some equipment with these different power sources you needed to connect to. "the project I work on" doesn't mean the same thing thing to different people!
Makes my response look a bit silly really. The explanation you've just given would have been useful up at the top, would have got you more helpful answers from the start.

Click to expand...

Fair enough.

It's not a complete solution, but why not reduce your lines to 2 instead of 1? An AC version and a DC version? Still got to be better than making 6 or 7 or whatever it is.

throbscottle said:

It's not a complete solution, but why not reduce your lines to 2 instead of 1? An AC version and a DC version? Still got to be better than making 6 or 7 or whatever it is.

Click to expand...

Yeah for sure, that's plan B. One universal AC, and one wide DC.