Power supply for bench testing

There is no need to worry about having a power supply that produced too many amps right?

exactly (to both posts). if you can find it get a 100 amp supply. that should do just about whatever you need. and whatever you are pluging in will only take the amount of current that it requires.

however finding a 100amp or even 84amp supply is going to be extremly hard to do (or atleast exteremly expensive ). my radioshack carrys up to about 25 amps and i think they run around $100. also keep in mind that if you cant find a supply large enough you can always buy multiple supplies (i.e. 4 25amp supplys) and hook in them in parallel to get the right amound of amps.

good luck,
Warren

p.s. it may just be easier to get some really long (and high quality)  jumper cables and run from your battery to your workbench (assuming your workbench is in the garage). if you do this just make sure to keep your car running the whole time your testing you may not be able to start it later.

Is there no better way to do this?

I'm trying to set one up in my install bay for testing decks and amps and so on, that get returned to the shop (we have a real lax return policy) so that they can or cannot be resold. To many times the customers tell customer service that they just didnt like it, when they actually blew some piece of it that you cant see. Then we resell them and people just get ticked off when they dont work. I've tried to setup a few things, but I like the first guy, I cant find anything with enough current to support the types of systems we'll be testing out. I cant have a car sitting in my install bay all the time, so I've been looking for a good inverter to use, but with no luck.

Anyone with some good suggestions or answers?

get four of these and wire the outputs in parallel. that will give you 1200watts to work with. it will cost your store $400. i have looked around a bit sice i made my last post and could really find anything that would be any better options for you. on the up side this particular supply does not use large coils to to the power transformations so its not THAT big and heavy. bolting four of them underneth a work table or somthing is certainaly doable. sorry if this was kinda rambling, but thats how i am.

~Warren say boolashacka to you!

NowYaKnow is exactly right:   Even a 1000 watt amp isn't going to be pulling close to 40-50 amps unless you're pushing it.  A smaller supply will work just fine.  I had 2 150w amps on a bench, turned it up fairly loud enough to see they were working fine, and together they weren't even pushing 15 amps.  I wish I would have saved myself some money and gone with a smaller supply.

yes and no, i was using an old AT power supply and it worked great for testing radios but as soon as i put an amp to it and turned it up it  would clip.  i had a realy small power supply though.  if you go with a newer and bigger ATX power supply you wil be able to turn it up more but after a certain point it will start to clip again.  but for test purposes it will work fine.  you have to trick the ATX into thinking it has a load on it so it will turn on.    not tricking needed for an AT.  here is the lay out for the AT  if i can find my ATX one i will post it.  should work fine for testing as long as you are not trying to rattle the shop.

AT style motherboard, new ATX motherboards use different connector

1.      Power Good (output from PS which tells that output voltages are OK)2.      +5Vdc3.      +12Vdc4.      -12Vdc5.      Ground6.      Ground7.      Ground8.      Ground9.      -5Vdc10.     +5Vdc11.     +5Vdc12.     +5Vdc

conect the ps-on (pin 14) to any ground this turns it on.  on some atx power supplies you have to put a load on the power supply so you can do this by just putting your radio on it power for the radio is supplye by the +12v (pin 10) and any ground pin. 

because you need this regulated current available at all times when testing amps... you need a stable supply voltage to properly test power amps, ( and a battery strapped to a battery charger-to make no mention of the nasty 60 cycle hum you'll probably get -  is NOT a stable supply )       if you are just looking to rig up a cheap backyard mechanic setup then get a cheap Circuit Test 10 amp supply and be done with it......these power supplies of ours are spread over different benches, some in service, some in install....and as i mentioned, the good one aren't cheap

but if you are testing a monster PPI or PG or Alpine amp, you'll need this type of current at hand.....

a computer power supply might give you enough juice to test a low power radio without problems....