NEEERRDDD

But i earn money by being a nerd!

awsome!

Nice. For me, Prototyping boards didn't really work well for me so i go for straight PCB ordering after some fiddling with schematics. I might try something more useful later on though.

hell yeah! electronic engineering is my bread and butter :3
and actually power supply creation is one of my primary fields x3

there are actually a number of high-efficiency buck-boost single chip solutions out there, can't remember the exact part number but TI and ST both make very good ones

I did saw a lot of Buck-Boost Single chip ICs, But the problem is they require a bit more complicated circuit outside, also involving transformer. I will certainly try those out later on though.

typically not, the only real disadvantage of a buck-boost design over any other typology is the fact that one is always going to be less efficient in one mode than the other, not as much as two cascaded controllers but still enough to be annoying.

i did a little googling and some i have used that you might be interested in is the LT1072 and higher power LT1269CT

The LT1072 has a more detailed datasheet than the 1269 and includes lots of fun applications including voltage inverters and using a single controller for a split +/- supply and in a package thats much easier to solder than my go-to buck-boost chip the TPS63060, also the 1269 and 1072 look totally interchangeable just one having a higher power switch so one design should work with both :3

Sounds fun, i'll have to look into that. The one i looked into was something called "SEPIC Buck-Boost" Converter, and was from chinese manufacturer.

SEPIC designs have advantages, such as they are inherently current limiting and hard to kill, but complex and very high noise, typically used in automotive environments

but im glad to see more people get in to EE :3 if you ever have any questions let me know id be happy to answer, my specialties are power supplies, metrology, analog front ends and, digital design but have dabbled in a little bit of everything :P

How does one get started?

Well if you're interested enough you can go on youtube and check out surprising amount of tutorials to get started. But also for me, i did made working circuits when i was younger ( few times though ) and that helped me a bit too.

Thank you, I have an idea of what I want the circuit to do but no idea how to plan or design it.

Cool stuff! I also was thinking about doing a similiar thing, a DIY modular synthesizer, but I'm a little too lazy to do it x)

Not bad

For various DC/DC boards i tend to just buy ready made chinese modules like these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-DC-Boo.....e/123567641150
https://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-DC-Conv.....t/382219150784

Not only because they are so darn cheap that i can't even buy the components for that price, but also because they often actually work pretty well and it saves me work drawing a PCB. Always nice to keep a few around for a project.

For this particular project i would recommend making the first regulator a tracking supply. These types of regulators loose efficiency if the difference between the output and input is high. Instead of always boosting to 50V you can add a bit of circuitry to make the boost regulator output always follow about 3V above the buck regulator output. This means it needs to boost less and the buck needs to drop less. In this arrangement for under 10V output the boost regulator would stop switching at all and simply passes the output trough its internal diode, making it even more efficient. The datasheets usually don't tell you about these tricks.

Oh and a cheep hot air station is really helpful when working with SMD chips. I think i got mine for like 40 USD many years ago and its still doing the job, can even do BGA chips with it provided there is enough patience.

I am aware that voltage difference has to be low for ideal result, I'll probably have to think a bit about how to do that though.

As far as im aware of this is the easiest trick to do tracking preregulation:
https://anotherelectronicsblog.file.....freg.png?w=650

Its that P MOSFET that is doing the trick. Here two regulators are chained together and the transistor is riding on the output voltage of the first switching regulator. Because the gate of the FET is tied to the output of the 2nd one means that whenever the main output is lower than the gate threshold voltage of the transistor(about 2 to 5V, depends on what FET you use) then the transistor turns on and feeds current into the voltage divider on the FB pin. This makes the divider voltage rise making the first regulator thinks that the output is too high so it reduces the voltage. It keeps doing this until the voltage is just below the transistors threshold, turning the transistor back off and this stops the regulator from reducing its output any more. This backwards feedback loop keeps doing it and makes sure the 1st regulator always outputs about 2 to 5V above the output of that 2nd regulator.

In this particular schematic its used to reduce the power loss on the 2nd linear regulator (Good for clean low noise output), but this same thing can be used with any combination regulators as long as the 1st regulator has a external FB pin. The FET also carries no power so it can be a tiny SMD signal FET that costs a few cents each.

In fact you can likely easily mod your existing board to do this by soldering a small SOT-23 FET across the top feedback resistor on your boost regulator (The FET is about the same size as a resistor anyway) and running a bodge wire from the gate to the output.

I can give you a poke on discord if you want any other tips and tricks.

That would be great. Mine is zi0808#9198

come on down to reddit /r/diytubes :)