De-smarting the Marshall Uxbridge

I recently designed and built my first DC/DC converter, a synchronous buck regulating some hefty DC currents. It turned out to work okay-ish (except the overvoltage crowbar), but I had a nagging feeling that it could (and should) be improved further. Even though the prototype made it through a testing regime of load currents (up to the full rated...

What is the logical next step after making a linear regulator? I learned some valuable lessons (both regarding general electronics and power supplies) doing that project, so I believe I could now make a much better linear supply. And perhaps I will! But now I decided it was time to aim for a switch-mode power supply (SMPS), a.k.a DC/DC converter.

The first 15 years or so in the life of this lamp were spent as originally intended: as a TOOLCRAFT magnifying lamp (model 8066/EU), sporting a 22W G10q circular fluorescent bulb. It ran trouble-free for several thousand hours, allowing me to look at small stuff through its large (⌀12 cm) magnifier glass, and serving as a desk and ambient light....

My brand new PSU, the most complicated circuit I designed and built just recently, started life in October 2023. It seemed to work pretty well, at least I got through the long and dark winter with it feeding my LED Superlamp. (Most of the time. The rest of that time, I was using it for something it was actually intended for, i.e., the feeding of...

So what to do with all the newly acquired experience of creating finely detailed circuit boards, SMT and all?