Is Application Knowledge Enough to Buy the Right Programmable Power Supply

Article

Being a test engineer, what is the first question you ask yourself when you decide to buy a programmable power supply (PPS)? Is it the price or features you look for? Now, when you think of features, is it only electrical properties like current, voltage or frequency that you think are important? So many questions to be answered, but do you have the answers? We all know that a power supply that has an internal microcomputer with an option to customise its working as per the tester’s requirement is called PPS. Now, the question is, what can be customised? Electrical parameters like voltage, current, frequency, time interval in which output is required, input and output formats can all be customised through different computer-programming languages like C, standard commands for programmable instruments (SCPI), etc.