My Converted ATX Power Supply

I converted an old 300W computer PSU into a DC Lab Power supply. It is a cheap alternitive to buying an expensive lab power supply. My Converted ATX Psu can give me 3.3,5,7,10,12,17,24 volts. It is a very Useful thing to have around.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Converted
• ATX
• Power
• Supply
• Computer
• DC
• Lab
• powersupply
• cheap
• technology
• Molex
• hard
• drive
• Electricity
• energy
• DIY

[xxgg]

Oh one more question I forgot to ask...

How can you get 17 & 24v ???

[Bobensen]

For 24 volts use -12 and +12 for 17 you use +12 and -5

[xxgg]

Is it even safe to load up the PSU upto 24volts ??

[Bobensen]

Umm, It is able to supply 24 but you cant use too much current. @ 24volts most power supplys can give 800mA, If you draw too much you will burn it out (entire psu) I accidentally overloaded my power supply using 24 volts and It ran for a while and then stopped and started smoking ( lucky I had like 5 more so I made another one but improved)

[xxgg]

What is the advantage of grouping all the same colored wires together vs. simply just using one single wire?

Less heat on wire during full load?

Would appreciate a detailed info.

Thanks.!

[Bobensen]

Well the grouping is for the ammount of current you want to get out of it without burning any wires. The more wires you have clustered together = more more current without melting anything. I just grouped ALL the wires because I planned on using it in some high current situations. You can easially just use 1 wire for each voltage but you wont be able to get much as much current safely out of it.

[meade9166]

@xxgg it's risky,mine started smoking when I connected 24v to ni-cr wire

[260830107]

most ATX psu has short circuit protection enabled, so when you try to make some sparks by shorting the power rails, it just turns it self off.

[LauxHawk]

I approve of the intro music.

[Iseekoutthetruth]

what is negative -12v ?

[benjwgarner]

@Logman91 Search for "Voltage Divider" on wikipedia, it'll give you a general schematic.

[benjwgarner]

@LetsFri You could power a device that would do that, but it wouldn't alone. Unless you really wanted to electrolyze the water into HHO, leaving the fluoride salts behind and burn the gas to get water again. But seriously, fluoride is not dangerous in the ammounts in treated city water. Well water may have higher quantaties from particular minerals in the ground, though.

[benjwgarner]

@Bobensen Is the -12v connection twelve volts below earth ground, or is it just relative to the ground of the power supply?

[LetsFri]

Can you remove Floride from water with your machine???

[ahacksor]

@Logman91 its a simple series circuit with outputs after each resistor. Lets say you have 24V into a circuit and you want 13-14V output you must have enough resistors in place before your output to "consume" 10-11V before your output. If you only want one voltage output then this is the best way but, if you want lets say 24V,20V,18V,14V,10V,and 5V outputs you will use the voltage divider to make the one circuit. If you dont know a lot on this topic lookup Ohms law and kirchhoff current law.

[Logman91]

@ahacksor and how would i go about making this "voltage divider circuit"?