My new PSU burns out! I fix it, and torture it by cracking water...

This is the story of a commercially unavailable stereo pair of the bi-amped Marshall Uxbridge, with custom-built replacement electronics: active filters feeding two linear power amps. Listening to this high-fidelity set has brought me immense enjoyment. Play a great album on these near-fields, and the result is close to pure magic! Over and above the accurate reproduction of a wide audio range, the precision and depth of its stereo imaging is stunning.

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....

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