We need a new type of Power Supply!!!!

dukeman · Post by **dukeman** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:31 am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hail,

I dont understand why companies dont make a PS that has detachable connectors. they could have a plug in for each type of wire and we could pick and choose the ones that we want to use. I hate having to hide a huge bundle of wires that i dont presently need. it is a pain in the arse to tuck them behind my motherboard tray and then to put the side of the case on.

I would be willing to pay an extra $20 or more for a good PS that had this option. with all the modding going on i dont understand why a company hasnt made one of this yet.

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 12:00 pm

It's coming. I'm beholden to an NDA, but I recently saw a major brand prototype of just the kind of thing you're talking about. They're promised an early sample.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 1:27 pm

It costs extra, but Performance-PCs will custom do a PSU for you exactly the way you described; not only that, but you get to choose the color of the heatshrink and sleeving used to sleeve the cabling.

If you're willing to pay for it, it's an excellent choice; I've ordered custom cabling from them on several occasions (if you look at the pictures of Alpha Three at my web site, you can see some of the work they've done for me), and would not hesitate for a minute to have them do more stuff for me if I were to build another machine with a clear side panel.

-Ed

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:11 pm

What we need is to start seeing more external fanless PSU's.

dukeman · Post by **dukeman** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 3:04 pm

the supplies at performance pc are sort of what i am thinking about. you still have to deal with the wires on theirs though. what i want to see is the connectors built into the supply. you could then just plug your wires into that.

that is a good start

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 5:27 pm

idealcrash wrote:What we need is to start seeing more external fanless PSU's.

Amen, brother! I'd definitely pay extra for a high-efficiency, fanless 2-part PSU that used a brick to feed a DC/DC convertor in a standard PSU shell.

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:14 pm

HammerSandwich wrote:
idealcrash wrote:What we need is to start seeing more external fanless PSU's.
Amen, brother! I'd definitely pay extra for a high-efficiency, fanless 2-part PSU that used a brick to feed a DC/DC convertor in a standard PSU shell.

Me too.

dago · Post by **dago** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:30 pm

Done : Soldam makes some external PSU, see their online shop. They also have a 350W version with a fan.

Well, if somebody understand japanese, he will be able to read the page and not guess from the pictures

EDIT: you can also browse their other (nice) products, they are also making a table PC ...

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:32 pm

Wow, that's neat. Never seen anything like that. Those crazy Japanese, what will they think of next!?*

* Whatever it is, it will probably have Hello Kitty on it.

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 3:43 am

dago wrote:Done : Soldam makes some external PSU, see their online shop. They also have a 350W version with a fan.

I knew they existed, that's why I said we need to start seeing more of those. Not only that, but more efficient and more wattage PSU's. Those PSU's are fine and dandy for SFF PC's, but they don't cut it for big loaded rigs. And that fan on the 350W PSU is cheating.

External PSU's can be made much bigger to house bigger heatsinks, they don't have to keep making them of the same size of internal PSU's damnit.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 6:44 am

MikeC wrote:It's coming. I'm beholden to an NDA, but I recently saw a major brand prototype of just the kind of thing you're talking about. They're promised an early sample.

Interesting... Hopefully it includes some cable kits. Or, better yet, comes with 5 m worth of cables, and dozen connectors...

Cheers,

Jan

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:24 am

There was already a psu like this, it was (is) called the antec modular true 550. it has snap on connectors for each of the cables so you choose what you need. this was out end of last year.

pangloss · Post by **pangloss** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 8:59 am

mike,

was there ever any update on this? i.e., can you talk about the psu yet?

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 9:22 am

pangloss wrote:can you talk about the psu yet?

You know, I think he can.

hvengel · Post by **hvengel** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 11:09 am

This thread make me think of an option I had not even considered before for putting together a totaly silent power supply. If the supply is external to the PC than there are no size constrains (with in reason). So why not look at other technologies to see what other options exist?

Being a ham radio operator the light bulb went on. We use very high power, highly regulated, very high quality DC power supplies for our radios. Many of these are fan cooled but some are not. Those that do use a fan only turn it on when the PSU is operating near max for an extended period and are therefore silent under most operating conditions. They are generaly much more expensive than PC power supplies but are also of much higher quality with extreamly tight voltage regulation (1% to 2%) and very low ripple (8 to 15 mVp-p).

But you would likely have to use 3 of these to make a workable substitute or fabricate a complex voltage regulation system for the 3 needed voltages.

So I did a little looking arround to see if this might be an option. Variable voltage supplies are available up to 50 amps output (continous) and as small as 22 amps. Most of these can be adjusted from 5 to 15 volts but I did find one 30 amp supply that would adjust down to 1 volt.

So you could use an MFJ-4225MV (about $140) for the 12 volt rail at up to 22 amps continous. A MFJ-4035MV (about $140) for the 3.3 volt rail (30 amp C) and a MFJ-4245MV (about $190) for the 5 volt rail (40 amps C). This would be like having a 600 or 700 watt conventional PC power supply. So it is way over kill. But it would allow the power supplies to operate well below the level where active cooling is needed and as a result this would be silent under all but the most extream conditions.

It woud also require significant mods on the PC side since a custom interface would have to be built between the PC and the external power supplies. The fabrication needed is beyond all but a few and even if someone could do the fabrication the PSUs would be very expensive(almost $500). So this is not a simple low cost DIY project. But I though that it might plant some seeds and get others to look around at other possibilities. There is really no reason for us to only consider the options that are available from PC vendors.

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 11:54 am

Try one of those 12V units with something like this. You might have the perfect PSU for $200 and a little wiring effort.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 1:53 pm

Interesting idea this.

I'd like to see this in more PSU's for the future (i.e. - for my next upgrade, I'll have to live with what I got for the time being)

.

Certainly a handy little thing

.

davidstone28 · Post by **davidstone28** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 3:05 pm

Doesn't the new Antec PSU have detachable connectors?

Krash · Post by **Krash** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:23 pm

Why dont you mod your power supply to have just the connectors you want?

TheDarkHacker · Post by **TheDarkHacker** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:27 pm

you mean something like this
http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/psu-97.html

ugly but funtional