Hello fellow vidiots,
Wanted to do a check-in on cases/power supplies. Has anyone tried any of the following setups with a combination of video and audio modules, and gotten good results (i.e. minimal noise)?
Or anything else portable/comparable that I’m missing? Obviously Vessel would be the best choice, but just wondering what else is out there and worth looking into.
Thanks.
I used the Make Noise 3u skiff and had no issues. I used TipTop Mantis cases and they worked well, but I eventually ran out of power to supply a full case of video modules. I went Vessel and have never looked back. Tons of power, smart syncbus options between cases, and glow in the dark bumpers! 
I also previously ran my video modules in a Make Noise 3U skiff but I had problems with noisy images that I guess was down to the power supply.
After that I had everything racked in my custom
Made case with Tip Top Audio Studio power boards and didn’t hit any problems.
Now have everything in a Tip Top Mantis and haven’t had any powers draw problems so far.
I have a mostly full diy 7U 84hp with audio and video and using 4MS Row 40. The only video modules are Cortex and Staircase and I have about 20 hp left to fill but I’m closing in on the power limit, or at least a comfortable distance from totally maxed out. It’s possible that there is some noise introduced in this setup but I don’t think my eye is discerning enough to notice. I’m toying with the idea of adding a Row30 to use just for audio mods and keep the Row40 for strictly video.
I own the Intellijel supply and can verify that it is a bit too noisy for video. (This was especially apparent in shape generation w/ Navigator/Shapechanger workflow.)
Malekko has the power boards back in stock, we will have them on our webstore soon (and 15 Vessels available.) I felt like high frequency ripple in the Intellijel supply was pretty noticeable. I’d recommend a power supply architecture that has a switching supply followed by LDOs (Tiptop Mantis and Studio Bus, Doepfer PSU3, etc.) or a fully linear power supply.
Thanks for everyone’s input, super appreciated. I have a linear PSU in the studio — got my hands on a cheap Erica Synths Monster Case with integrated PSU awhile back, which has been super solid. The Vessel definitely seems like the best choice for a portable rig, and I love the design. @creatorlars, are you working on a “lid” accessory for Vessel? Or is it more designed for transport inside an actual/rugged case?
Vessel is meant to be a housing/power for modules, transported in something like a keyboard gig bag or transport case, mounted on VESA mounts in the studio. But if you’ve got a big linear PSU already, definitely stick with that! Linear will always be ideal.
Does anyone here have any experience with the Pittsburgh Modular cases and Power Supplies that come with them? I’m thinking specifically of the 420 rack.
Having a case-space crisis and this would give me room to work with but I’m really dumb when it comes to power requirements.
I’m only using video modules.
I was about to ask this same question yesterday and got sidetracked. So I am interested in anyone’s input, too. They seem to supply plenty of power, and they look like linear power supplies in the Structure-EP line of cases… but I don’t know much about power supplies.
Structure 420 is one of the worst offenders of high frequency ripple we’ve measured so far, so we don’t recommend it.
Thanks Lars. Back to the drawing board.
Just get one of these and wire it to passive busboards:
4.5A +/-12V, best linear power you can get!!
That’s more than I feel safe doing. It looks huge! Can you walk me through it? This will help me learn about power. I’d be happy to edit the process and generate a doc for your knowledge base on the site.
May I suggest you not work with mains voltages unless you already know what you’re doing or have some in-person expert guidance?
I appreciate your response and you are correct. I don’t have the experience to deal with it. But! I have access to people who do this stuff in their sleep. So all hope is not lost.
I’m definitely happy to post some pictures of our studio rig (which is 5 subrack frames and one of those Acopian supplies.) John is correct though, unless you know what you’re doing (it’s possible to learn!) then best to defer to the experts. The Acopian supply itself is pretty basic – I have mine wired to the fused IEC inlet on my ADDAC rack frame, so it connects to the mains on the other side of that.
I think MP has the same amps compsuption per hp as any other LZX, its a rule of thumb that Lars keeps mentioning
Headroom never hurts, but powering up to the quoted specs should be okay. Just watch out for heat. The Memory Palace has an aux 12V DC connector to power the digital platform’s core circuitry. This reduces the power draw from 650mA on the +12V Euro rail down to just 40mA on +12V Euro rail if you power it from an external wall wart adapter. You don’t have to worry about it being a switching supply in this case, because it’s powering the digital rail only (analog rails are derived from the clean euro supply’s +/-12V.) If you have the Vessel case, there’s already an internal DC jack you can use for chaining. We have a small access panel planned for this, too (that gives the Vessel case power/sync chaining features to the front of a rack in a different case.)
The Erogenous Tones Structure module will have the same technique for sourcing digital power externally from the EuroRack rails as an option. Rick and I have worked on the circuit together. 
Even at 650mA, which is over the typical LZX budget, if you balance it out with some of the LZX modules which are under the power budget per HP (Escher Sketch is one!), you should still be okay. I’m currently running a full Vessel with Memory Palace and Escher Sketch, and the top row full of Expedition modules, and having no issues running it all off the Malekko Power.
Has anyone had problems with the mantis case and Cadet modules? Seems like most are a little too deep for the mantis case (65mm on the VCO and SyncGen), at least on paper.