Quoted from bklossner:I'm a hobbiest at best (about a year of EE experience), fixing pins and now tinkering with op-amps to make little chaos noise generators so I'm not ready to drop a ton of money.
I'm going to run the same question through some Synth DIY forums but I wanted to ask everyone here what they use when you don't want a box of wall-warts?
It seems like I don't need anything more powerful than 30V as I'm still new to the world.
I do synth DIY as well as repair Synths. You need at least a dual output + and - power supply. You can do a simulated gnd with a single ended supply but many synth circuits use +12 to 15 VDC as well as -12 to -15 vdc.
Also you need to know how much current you can supply. At the minimum, one Amp is almost mandatory.
You could also roll your own with some cheap kits like these
http://vakits.com/adjustable-negative-power-supply-kit-lm337-1846
http://vakits.com/adjustable-power-supply-kit-lm317-1725
They also sell fixed output + and - 78xx and 79xx based voltage regulators.
If you went this route you'd need a suitable transformer
as well as a heat sink for the regulators. Bump up the Bridge and get the full 1.5 amp output, I'd also increase the filter caps as well with higher uf and replace the trimpot with a standard Rotary pot and possibly a smaller value Pot for fine tuning the voltage outputs.
Folks have also used PC power supplies and made +5 VDC and + and - 12 vdc.
You could also check the surplus electronics vendors for deals on power supplies.
A few years ago I scored a deal on Ebay for 4 Power One, +5, and adjustable with a trim pot +/- 11 VDC to ~ 16.5 VDC, linear supplies
For synth diy work I'd stick with a linear supply versus a High Freq switching PS.
Boston, MA
