Power Supply Approach

A. Do no harm

In all our appoach, we have to respect that this is a system in a totally unknown state, with limited or no spares availability. We must prioritise protecting the computer. If we reach a point of any doubt, we stop.

B. Learn something

Since this system isn’t well documented or common, we want to be able to contribute back to the collected knowledge about the system – both with facts and diagnostics.

C. Technical Approach

Since we’re not experienced in PSU design, although we comfortable in code. We’ll make technical decisions that get maximum value from other people’s work.

• use off the shelf modules as far as possible
• use a common microcontroller
• leverage documented projects to develop routines

We’ve actually done a limited amount of PCB design and manufacturing before. So after some experimentation, it seems likely we will need to spin a custom PCB. Attempts to create components with one off prototype boards have been pretty unsatisfactory.

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