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Bench power supply for classroom, 1 shared or many cheap?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2026 5:00 am
by rina_stem
STEM lab budget. Two ways to power 10 student benches:
  • One good bench supply (Korad KA3005P, ~PHP 6000), students share/queue
  • Ten USB-based buck modules + phone chargers (~PHP 300 each), one per bench
Students mostly need 3.3V/5V for Arduino projects, occasional 12V for motors.

Sharing = bottleneck during class. Ten cheap = no current limiting, students can fry parts.

Teachers: how do you power multiple benches safely on a budget? Adjustable-with-current-limit matters for teaching (short circuit = learning moment, not fried board).