I have several Raspberry Pi's running in my shack on a daily basis. Well some use the factory wall-warts you buy for the Pi and others run from cheap DC-DC Buck Converters. It is always a schlep to find the correct wall-wart or converter lying somewhere underneath a desk or on the floor. I decided to build a dedicated 5v Power Distribution Board from items that I had lying around.
I found a switch mode power supply which I salvaged from and industrial appliance. When I tested the output I found that it delivers 5v, 2v and -4v DC. Unfortunately I could not find the amount of amperes it provides. This will be tested under real operating conditions. Looking at the construction of the power supply and the cooling fan, this unit is no small power unit and will work for my intended purpose. I decided to add a fan for cooling as in the original industrial cabinet the fan was built into the cabinet. I removed the fan and install it on-top of the power supply. Next I needed some means of distributing the output power. I could add connection points to each 5v wire but decided to 3 D Print a "Bus-Bar" type positive and negative feed point. I joined all the red positive wires and black negative wires to heavy duty lugs which I then added to each bus-bar. The copper bus-bar is made of 20 mm copper pipe which I flattened in my bench vice. Added brass-bolts and nuts which I had lying around and bolted both bus-bars to a piece of cutting board.
That's it project nearly completed. I just need to fit some acrylic covers to ensure that no short-circuits occur between the two bus-bars. Once again a very cheap project with items that I had lying around. Hopefully this distribution board will work much better than the wall-warts and DC-DC buck converters. One could just as easily use the copper bus bars for building a 12 v distribution board. Who knows might just do that one day.
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