my fan-less psu. work in progress (update: it's finished)

quix · Post by **quix** » Tue Mar 25, 2003 4:47 am

i added extension wires to the mosfets. not hard to do (soldering is the hardest part), just make sure the contacts are the same as if the mosfets were on the pcb. the heatsinks of this psu were live, but i checked the traces of the back of the pcb and saw it wouldn't make a difference if it wasnt live, so no problems here. will maybe do some kind of tutorial on how to do this (as i have made lots of photos while doing this).

well, this was the first test, and it works very well! now i have to plan where to put the heatsinks and the pcb, cut holes into the large heatsink, etc..

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Mar 25, 2003 4:59 am

Between the windowed HDD and the Frankenstien PSU it's obvious that you'll try anything, modding-wise! Good luck with the PSU, keep us informed.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Tue Mar 25, 2003 6:10 am

I dont know it it will be helpful, but ive seen HUGE heatsinks that could be used in power supplies on several of these outlet warehouse junk type stores. http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi
http://www.meci.com/
theres a big heatsink on this page too

Riffer · Post by **Riffer** » Tue Mar 25, 2003 4:02 pm

I guess a guy who clear-mods his hard drive isn't going to be intimidated by a PSU

quix · Post by **quix** » Wed Mar 26, 2003 3:21 pm

i bought some large heatsinks, drilled all the holes, and did something (dunno to word in english, "gewinde" in german) for the screws. so, it's "finshed". tested it again with the 3 harddrives, no problems. connected to mainboard, harddrives, and it's working!!! the heatsinks barely get warm, the problem is a coil in the psu... it's getting really hot... the guy (forgot the name) that did extended the wires for watercooling also mentioned this problem and fixed it somehow, will ask him how he did it.

well, should have planed this a bit better, the extension cables are too long! will try to tidy up a bit. other problems, hmm, the coil of course, mabye i can add heatsink on top of it somehow... will be difficult with all the cables...

i added a 12v fan (dont want risk anything) to cool the cpu (psu-fan was near it, didnt need an own fan) and that F****** coil. will leave it like that (it's running 24/7) until i find another way to cool the coil.

here the pix, check my page (link is in profile) for pix of how it looked before!

dgouldin · Post by **dgouldin** » Wed Mar 26, 2003 8:17 pm

Just one question:

How many armies is that heatsink worth in Risk?

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 5:28 am

That looks alot like the heatsink I linked on this page, except the fins go the other way. Its $10. here http://www.meci.com/

quix · Post by **quix** » Thu Apr 03, 2003 11:29 am

heya!
so, it's finally getting better then it was with the fanned psu! cabling is better now, attached a heatsink to the hot coil, and drilled ~400 more holes into the case-top, now there are 667 6mm holes :-D
i think it's quiter now, and the cpu has it's own fan, so it's cooler too.
one thing left to do on the psu is to add a heatsink to the larger trafo, it's getting warm, it's "ok" at the moment! that pc is running 24/7 without any problems! was also running 24/7 with 100% cpu load at a lan party last weekend, where i also bought the ccfl lights, was very cheap, couldnt resist :-) looks nice, me thinks.
next thing to do is to drill some more holes, and passively cool the hd's, because that fan is the loudest at the moment (even at 5v). might also replace it with a papst 2ngl-something, which i also bought at that party, was 15 swiss francs, thats 10 us$ !

quix · Post by **quix** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 10:28 am

here a little update. i hot-glued a heatsink to the trafos and the caps. and another one to the main rectifier. both heatsinks are getting warm, and the components are cooler than before, kinda surprised how well it worked!

also got a dremel yesterday, and have some big plans for modding the case! will update my page when finished.

Post by **MikeC** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 10:39 am

wow, that's all very impressive, quix! So write it up, zip it with photos and send it over to me for a SPCR article -- should be a fun piece for the hardcores.

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 12:54 am

Fanless Power Supply: Marko's Homebrew

barefootzero · Post by **barefootzero** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 2:02 pm

Why the necro bump?

BTW this thread brings back alot of memories. Marco's PSU mod was the first I attempted myself. The result was very successful and I only got shocked 3 times from that PSU. I later used what I learned to make an ultra compact case using a stripped down PSU. The second case was much safer.