Potential Pirate

From DP

Ideas for the Potential Pirate:

• Bus pirate like USB/Serial interface
• Two tracking power outputs that can either be voltage or current sources.
• Several analog inputs.
• Full multimeter like functionality on at least 2 analog inputs.
• Low cost

• Hackable PCB with extra uC pins broken out
• No set case/panel

• Must have mounting holes

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Applications:

• General purpose bench power supply
• Curve tracing (diodes and other semiconductors)
• Battery charging

• Alternative energy monitoring

• Instrumentation

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Power supply objectives:

• At least 1A per output

• 0.7-12v range

• Input of 12-24v DC

• User supplied DC supply (reuse old laptop power supplies for example)

• Software controlled constant current or constant voltage

• Script-able control

• Ability to set limits on current and voltage output (software breakers)

• Any input can be used for current or voltage control/limits

Analog input objectives:

• Ability to measure AC voltages up to mains

• 16 bit resolution

• High input impedance

• 8 Inputs

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Implementation ideas:

• Atmega168 /w ft232 for usb/serial and 8channel SPI adc

• Use 16bit PWM for power control

• Use the 6 onboard A2D to monitor input voltage, 2 output voltages, 2 output currents (poor resolution, only 10bit, maybe good enough for input voltage and output current, but not output voltage)

• Power switching MOSFETs???

• Filtering Network???