I’m trying to build a power supply for a modular synth. However, I am failing miserably. When I run ERC it doesn’t like the majority of it. It apparently doesn’t like the connections when I plug 'em in. tried to upload .sch to new it seems. Suppose i’m looking for a mentor or a power supply .sch that can take a 230V AC to 2 X 15v 80VA to 12v dc and 5v dc. Thanks in advance
We are happy to help with the KiCad specific questions . . . general electronics questions are better asked in the more general electronics forums.
Be absolutely sure that your schematic grid is set to 50 mils.
Then select everything and right-click “Align items to grid.”
See if that helps with connections.
Read:
to see how to promote yourself to be able to upload files.
the general advice is “buy” that power supply and design the rest of your electronics. Designing AC/DC supplies can be dangerous, so you’d better know what you’re doing.
if you can’t find exactly the supplies you need, then get an AC to 24V-DC and design several DC-DC supplies into your project.
Do you want something like this:
There are plenty of designs for power distribution of Euro rack modules. On Tindie for example you can buy a distribution board with 10 or so of the 16-pin power connectors for EUR12.
You do need to have some knowledge about safety with mains related voltages. Designing an SMPS for mains voltage to low voltage would be quite an undertaking, but those things are so cheap that it’s not cost effective to design your own. Plenty of cheap low tier ones. Meanwell has built up a name for making decent SMPS for a relatively low price, and there are higher quality brands which also cost more.
In general, I keep mains voltages away from all my PCB designs. Partly because of the reasons mentioned above, and partly because power supplies are bulky and heavy. Take that SyntherJack as an example. It makes much more sense to screw the mains transformer directly into the housing, and use a PCB that is 1/4 of the size it is now. This does leave a bit of a problem with mains enty circuitry. Filtering, power switch and fuse, but those can even all be integrated into a chassis mount C13 socket.
Doing the mains voltage part separately also leaves open options for alternative designs. For example two left over (second hand) laptop power supplies can be put in series to make a symmetrical power supply.
If you fail miserably, the next step is to realize that buying a ready made power supply is the best way.
If it is a classic analog PSU that you are failing with, you should realize that you need to watch some tutorials (or even read some) about how to use KiCad. Explore kicad.org to find them, even if it takes 2 minutes.
if you do really want to have AC in, then there are many AC/DC power “modules” that are PCB mountable, MeanWell, CUI, Recom, Traco all make modules that take in “world-wide” AC input (roughly 80-277VAC) and put out isolated DC, you can get small ones that are a few watts or larger ones. you still need to be a little careful about the AC input (spacing, pins sticking out the bottom of the PCB, etc) but otherwise those have worked well in the past.
there’s many, here’s just one example;
MPM-90-24
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