Antec NSK1300 with PW-200-V DC-DC and Akasa Evo-120

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eitheta
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Antec NSK1300 with PW-200-V DC-DC and Akasa Evo-120

Post by eitheta » Sat Mar 03, 2007 12:31 am

Plot Synopsis:
My wife's Linux box needed an upgrade. She's had a Shuttle, and likes the small size, but I (being her system vendor) don't like that Shuttle's chassis are throwaway (i.e. motherboard cannot be replaced). So, with some inspiration from Bluefront, I've tried building a simple system in an Antec NSK1300. I'm less skilled/patient/industrious than Bluefront, whose case is an Antec Aria, kind of like Mark Martin's car is a Chevy Monte Carlo. So I tried to get 75% of the benefit with 15% of the effort. The rough plan was to discard the stock PSU from the NSK1300, put a 120mm fan in its place, and power the system using an external power-brick and an efficient DC-DC converter. In case any of this is helpful to anyone who might be itching to build a reasonably quiet SFF desktop, here's what I did...

Cast of Characters:
Mobo : ASUS P5B-VM
CPU : C2D E6300 (I should have opted for the E6600)
HDD : Hitachi 7K100 (2.5" 7200rpm)
CDRW : some old Lite-On
Case : Antec NSK1300 with stock PSU removed
CPU HS : Akasa Evo-120 (AK-920)
AC/DC : Dell 220W external brick power adapter ($40 via eBay)
DC/DC : Mini-Box PW-200-V DC/DC converter

Right now the onboard VGA drives a 1600x1200 CRT, but at some point we'll add a low-power 2x DVI graphics card, to run a pair of 1600x1200 LCDs (her work is all 2-D, but lots of pixels is nice). So I wanted more power headroom than I'd have from a 120W picoPSU. Mini-Box offer their 200W DC/DC design on either a square-ish PCB (PW-200-M) or a long skinny PCB (PW-200-V). Plugged directly into the ATX power connector on the P5B-VM, neither of these would fit in the case. (This is not strictly true, as I'll confess later). Bluefront has a shorter than normal mATX motherboard in his Aria, which is why he has plenty of room for his PW-200-M. So I mounted the PW-200-V upside-down in front of the mobo, and used a generic 20pin-24pin ATX adapter cable to connect it.

To mount the DC/DC, I found 3/8 x 2 inch hex-head nylon cap screws at a hardware store. Cut off the end, drilled and 6-32 tapped through the axis, and filed the shoulder of one of them to provide clearance for a capacitor at the end of the PW-200-V. I drilled a couple of holes in the floor of the case, and used 6-32 x 3/8 machine screws to fasten the nylon pillars to the base. The pillars provide a sturdy mounting, and are non-conductive -- the PW-200-V's mounting holes are perilously near to exposed 12V wires.
Image

Various threads (e.g. 28246,29018) have discussed modding the Dell 150W or 220W AC/DC adapters for use with DC/DC desktops. I'd rather not burn my house down, so I opened my brick and traced out enough of the DC end of the circuit to convince myself that the adapter does work as simply as the various forum posts suggest. Dell has multiple sources for these 220W bricks. Most people mention Delta. Mine happens to be made by HiPro (ZVC220HD12S1). The Dell end of it should be the same, regardless of the manufacturer. The cable is 8 conductor, though pin 1 is unused.
Image
The pinout, numbered as in the picture, is:
1: N/C. Soldered to a through-hole in the adapter's PCB, but that through-hole is not connected to anything else on the PCB.
2,3,4 : +12V. Three white wires to carry the outbound current. Two meters of 16 gauge copper is about 24 mOhm, and 18 Amps through that would be about a 425 mV drop, so this adapter triples the wire, dividing the drop by three (i.e. 142 mV at max current). The three wires solder together into one big hole in the adapter's PCB.
Pin 5 : 'Trigger.' There's a pullup resistor in the brick which causes this signal to float up to a few volts. Short this line to ground, and the adapter goes from Standby (amber LED) to On (green LED).
Pins 6,7,8 : Ground. Three black 16g wires. They have to carry all that 18 A current back to the adapter, so unfortunately, this means that 'ground' inside this PC is up to 142 mV higher potential than earth. All three are soldered together into one hole in the adapter's PCB ground plane.

Aside: The adapter's PCB ground plane is then directly connected to the earth pin of the AC mains connector. Thus the 142 mV 'ground' on my mobo could create issues if I had an external (e.g. USB) peripheral that powered by a power adapter with three-wire mains that was similarly connected. I could wind up dumping quite a lot of current through the shield on a USB cable. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised to see this, in cost-sensitive consumer commodity designs (i.e. a Dell laptop), but it's something to keep in mind when using this type of setup.

The PW-200-V came with 12 inch power input leads (18 gauge wire!) terminated with a 5mm barrel connector socket. Most users who've posted on these forums have gone to Radio Shack etc and found a plug to fit it. However, barrel connectors like this are generally rated for less than one amp. I opted to keep the Dell power-brick and it's connector intact, and find a mating connector. I desoldered the 24-pin ATX power socket from an old ATX motherboard. I cut it in two (leaving only positions 1-4 & 13-16), to make myself an 8-pin connector which mates perfectly with the connector on the Dell brick. These Molex connectors are rated for 6 A per pin.

To mount this spiffy new power connector into the back panel, I cut a small piece of 1/4 inch acrylic, drilled two mounting holes, and cut a rectangular hole in the center into which my new 8-pin connector press-fit. A drop of superglue secured the connector into the acrylic. The three +12V and three GND wires are soldered across the two threesomes of pins (I'd recommend a more powerful soldering iron than the 25W cheapo I used for this - three 16g wires sink a lot of heat, so my soldering is marginal). I added a two-pin header, from the trigger to GND, and a jumper across it, to enable or standby the powerbrick. Not really necessary - I could have just soldered from GND to Trigger.

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A much better solution would have been to order a Molex 39-01-2081 (8-position panel-mount connector) and eight Molex 44478-3112 crimp-to-wire male contacts from DigiKey.com. Then I would use 18g sheet aluminum instead of the 1/4" acrylic. But I didn't want to wait another three days.

Connecting the PW-200-V to this spiffy new power connector are six 16-gauge wires (3x black for GND, and 3x blue for +12V, because I didn't have any white wire), and made them long enough to route up out of the way. It seemed impossible to solder the six heavy wires directly to the PW-200-V without risk of shorts, so I cut their pair of 18-g wires about 4 cm from the PCB, and spliced my six wires to their two.

With the stock PSU gone, the interior of the NSK1300 is quite open. Since this build uses a notebook drive and the Conroe isn't too much of a power hog, I hunted for a CPU cooler that could make this work as a single-fan system. I ended up with the Akasa Evo-120.

Image
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Several other heatsink options I considered:

#1 Get rid of the optical drive and Antec's slot-in drive-mounting frame with it. Suspend the 2.5" HDD somehow over in the corner above the SATA connectors. Then I'd have bags of room, and could fit a Ninja in there. In fact, I tried this, during some of the testing. But my wife decided she wanted an internal optical drive.

#2 I did some measuring, and I think that if I got a shorter optical drive, a Thermalright HR-01 might just fit. It would be a near thing, and provide zero margin. Its back face would be far enough from the fan as to maybe need a duct (which Thermalright provides).

#3 The Silverstone NT01v2 has an offset/skewed design which would put the HS fin-stack back near the fan, much like what has worked nicely in my NSK2400 box (whose setup I shamelessly copied from Bicster), though rotated by 90 degrees. In the NSK1300, however, there is a lot more vertical space available at the back of the case. So what I really wanted was a taller version of the NT01v2.

#4 Then I discovered the Akasa Evo-120, which looks for all the world like a taller version of the NT01v2. It fits almost perfectly, sitting about 8-11 mm from the exhaust fan, and in pretty good alignment with it, both vertically and side-to-side.

I tried adding a little cardboard ducting to the Evo-120, and it dropped the CPU temps by a degree or so, but I figured the CPU was plenty cool already, and I'd rather have more free airflow to the northbridge, hard drive and memory.

Temperatures: Turns out that the temperature measurements depend a lot) on what BIOS version is flashed into the P5B-VM motherboard. With BIOS version 0405, Speedfan says Sys=45c, CPU=50c, HD0=33c, Core0=46c, Core1=44c, after 20 minutes with 2x CPUBurn. Ambient was about 18c at the time. The Nexus fan is running on 12V.

I considered turning the fan around and going positive pressure. The Evo-120 would be getting ambient temperature air, so the CPU should stay a couple degrees cooler. But, as with the ducting, I figured that the CPU is already cooler than the northbridge and other system components. I decided it's better for the CPU's heat to be immediately removed from the case, rather than blowing that heat inward and trying to cool the NB, RAM, & HDD with pre-heated air. Always tradeoffs.

Other notes...

The NSK1300 has the front USB and audio ports on a little beige-colored PCB. With the PW-200-V installed this way, the internal connector for the USB was blocked by the ATX power connecter above the PW-200-V. I bent the 10-pin header for the USB ports from horizontal to vertical. Pry the black plastic spacer off, straighten the pins, push the spacer back on, and clip off the too-tall pins.

I originally tried mounting the PW-200-V the other way round (rotated 180 degrees within the horizontal plane). That way, its 20-pin ATX power connector would be along the edge nearer the mobo, and avoid blocking the front panel audio connector. I later decided I'd rather the input power wires not be any longer than necessary, so I remounted as in the pix. Which is made it necessary to (un)bend the USB connector as just described.

I stated above that the square-ish PW-200-M would not fit in this case, with this mobo. That is not completely true. I measured pretty carefully, and figured that it would fit, but that it would almost exactly butt edge-on against the little PCB the holds the front panel audio and USB connectors. The two PCBs would align vertically, and almost exactly touch, horizontally. If there would be any clearance, it would be less than a millimeter. And the pins of the USB connector (which were projecting horizontally) would poke into the guts of the power circuit. As it turned out, I've had to (un)bend the USB connector anyway. So if I had a do-over, I'd have bought the PW-200-M, and plugged it directly into the motherboard. Unbent both the audio & USB connectors to a vertical orientation. And slipped a piece of thin, heat-resistant dialectric between the two PCBs where they would (nearly) abut.

A word about the Evo-120 v2. I think FrostyTech overstate the differences between the v1 & v2 versions. According to Akasa.co.uk, the heatpipes are 8mm on both. Near as I can tell, a somewhat better-made base is the only difference. But then again, I don't have a v2 for comparison, so I may well be wrong here.

Maybe in future....

Figure out a good way to automatically control the fan speed with temperature. What is now a reasonably quiet PC could idle just a few degrees warmer, and be very quiet.
I considered using a Scythe S-Flex SFF12D (800rpm @ 12V) in place of the Nexus. It's much quieter. But June gets mighty warm in these parts. So I'd rather have the Nexus (or a SFF12E), and somehow control it thermally.

The HDD is sitting directly above the RAM and NB, which I think explains it being a little warm. It might stay cooler if it were somehow suspended vertically, above the southbridge and SATA ports.

Add a low-power 2x DVI video card. It'll be interesting to see the effect on system temps.

I think that an HR-05 (or some such) would fit, on the northbridge. But it would be very near conflicting with the HDD's SATA connector.

Next time I'm ordering something from DigiKey, maybe I'll get one of those 8-pin Molex connectors, and redo my backpanel power connector.

digitalfeed
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Post by digitalfeed » Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:16 am

awesome modifications eitheta! i've been looking at doing the same with the PW-200-V and now that you've done this with a higher end processor, you've helped me out in my preparation. thanks!

niels007
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Post by niels007 » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:36 am

Big thumbs up!

With those load temps, I'd 7 volt the nexus immediatly though! :) Very well done!

eitheta
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Post by eitheta » Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:18 pm

By the way -- I finally remembered to order one of the Molex 39-01-2081 panel-mount connector housings. Turns out that the connector on the Dell brick is a custom variation, and is keyed differently than the standard 8-pin housing. So it didn't fit. I hope noone ordered that P/N on my advice. Sorry. Sometime, I'll check and see if the key-variants are also available, but for now I've got too many other projects eating up my time.

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Post by Bluefront » Wed Aug 01, 2007 2:07 am

That Antec case can be modded into a nice setup......but you definitely have to remove the stock power supply. My Aria setup is still running just fine, with my sister using it as her main computer. She has no dust problem, so there is no filter on the case any longer. The P4-2.8 that's in it right now runs very cool and quiet. For a rather large SFF computer, the Aria makes a nice computer..

In my setup having a smaller MB was a big benefit. I also removed the stock PSU connector on the PICO....and replaced it with a salvaged heated car seat connector from a Jeep. The connections snap together, and look much more secure. In the Jeep the connections handled about 20A, plenty enough for the PICO.

There are only a few SFF cases that will handle a full-sized MATX board. The Aria is the best.....

Love that HSF setup......although I would have gone positive. :lol:

joeyl
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Post by joeyl » Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:50 am

very nice setup, I was inspired by it and already bought an SX-280 Dell power brick!
I do have a question though: instead of soldering all the leads across the pins of the motherboard socket, can I solder each lead to each pin and then heatshrink individually? it would make a neater connection that will require less heat from the soldering iron.

Also I don't understand how this works: 3 leads give out each 12V, when we combine them to one power lead to the pw-200-m, would that not make more than 12V?


thanks

eitheta
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Post by eitheta » Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:40 am

joeyl wrote: instead of soldering all the leads across the pins of the motherboard socket, can I solder each lead to each pin and then heatshrink individually?
Yes. In this application, the difference is insignificant.
joeyl wrote: 3 leads give out each 12V, when we combine them to one power lead to the pw-200-m, would that not make more than 12V?
No. Because the three voltages are in *parallel*, the output will be 12V, but with three times the current-carrying capability. One would get 36V, on the other hand, if one wired three 12V voltage sources in *series*.

joeyl
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Post by joeyl » Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:32 am

eitheta wrote:
joeyl wrote: instead of soldering all the leads across the pins of the motherboard socket, can I solder each lead to each pin and then heatshrink individually?
Yes. In this application, the difference is insignificant.
joeyl wrote: 3 leads give out each 12V, when we combine them to one power lead to the pw-200-m, would that not make more than 12V?
No. Because the three voltages are in *parallel*, the output will be 12V, but with three times the current-carrying capability. One would get 36V, on the other hand, if one wired three 12V voltage sources in *series*.
cool, makes perfect sense now.
Now I just have to choose between the PicoPSU and the PW-200. I am reusing old parts so they are not too efficient :(

mark19891989
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Post by mark19891989 » Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:54 am

Hey, thanks for the pinout of the dell adapter, im using it with my own pico psu, made my life alot easier :d

yetidaddy
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Post by yetidaddy » Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:59 pm

hi, im sorry this is an old thread. I thought i could do it that's why I bought all the things required. What I have so far is the PW-200-M but where's the extra 4pin required for new motherboards? And it only has two wires, where did those blue and black wires come from? I haven't receive my dell adapter yet, maybe its on them?

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Post by eitheta » Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:31 pm

yetidaddy wrote:where's the extra 4pin required for new motherboards?
eitheta wrote:So I ... used a generic 20pin-24pin ATX adapter cable to connect it
On the ATX power-supply connector, pins 21..24 are redundant, to allow more current for newer mobos... but since you're using a PW-200, you must have chosen a mobo that wouldn't really need the extra current, so you can just plug nothing into those four pins, or use an adapter. Maybe cheaper elsewhere, but here's an example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812200064

Er... Just re-read your post... If, by "the extra 4pin", you mean the P4 connector, then you should have ordered that option with your PW-200 ...
http://www.mini-box.com/P4-ATX

The blue and black wires, I added, because I wanted a low-R current path from my back-panel connector to my PW-200.

yetidaddy
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Post by yetidaddy » Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:42 pm

Yes, the P4 is what i meant, I'm sorry I didn't know the term.
I looked on newegg and your motherboard uses a P4 connector too do you use the P4 cable?

eitheta
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Post by eitheta » Fri Jun 11, 2010 5:23 pm

yetidaddy wrote:Yes, the P4 is what i meant, ... your motherboard uses a P4 connector too do you use the P4 cable?


Yep. That one is not so redundant. Don't omit it.

If you have (access to) a good high-wattage soldering iron, you can snip a P4 connector off an old dead PSU, and solder to the GND & 12V output of your PW-200. If you'd ordered the P4-ATX cable together with the PW-200, mini-box would have soldered it on for you.

yetidaddy
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Post by yetidaddy » Sat Jun 12, 2010 9:56 pm

hi, I'm sorry but i'm slowly getting the guide you provided. To explain what I understand so far:

I need cut the wires from a dead 24 atx psu. Take three wires and combine them together then solder it to the 12v hole in the pw-200 that's empty.

Repeat with three more wires and solder them to the ground.

Solder the one to the 5v hole on the pw-200.

Then on the other end, solder the 12v across three pins(Can i solder them individually to each pin?). pin 2,3,4

Repeat same for the ground. pin 6,7,8

Solder the Trigger to one of the pin. pin 5

Then connect the dell adapter and it will work?

Also, about the P4 connector. Do I solder both yellow wires to the 12v hole that's already soldered when i got the pw-200? And each ground to each already soldered ground holes?

eitheta
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Post by eitheta » Sun Jun 13, 2010 8:27 am

That all sounds roughly right. It's been 3+ years since I did this, the details are kinda hazy for me.
yetidaddy wrote:Solder the one to the 5v hole on the pw-200.
Dunno about that. I don't remember any 5V wires apart from the HDD power connector which was already soldered in.
yetidaddy wrote:solder the 12v across three pins(Can i solder them individually to each pin?)
Yes. Reread the above posts @joeyl .
yetidaddy wrote:P4 connector. Do I solder both yellow wires to the 12v hole that's already soldered when i got the pw-200? And each ground to each already soldered ground holes?

That sounds right. I *think* I recall all the 12V ins and outs being shorted solidly together within the PW-200 - you might want to confirm that with an ohm-meter, before assuming - don't melt your mobo, or worse. In which case I suppose you could alternatively just run the P4 connector straight from your back panel 8-pin connector (that mates to the Dell pwr brick).

Take your time & make sure you're sure what's going on with each step - wikipedia & pinouts.ru are your friends. Carefully re-read my initial post above - it remembers the details of all this better than my aging memory does.
Good luck.

yetidaddy
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Post by yetidaddy » Sun Jun 13, 2010 9:30 am

I understand the 12v wire and the ground wire. But what did you do with the ATX 24pin's PIN 4(5V) and PIN 16(PS/ON) ?

And there are 4 PCB holes on the pw-200. The 12v blue goes through one, black ground goes through one. What about the other two, the ground and the 5v ?

I wish I knew this sooner that people were doing this. Would've been a great project a few years ago. Thanks for this, without it I couldn't even get started.

eitheta
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Post by eitheta » Sun Jun 13, 2010 1:03 pm

eitheta wrote:I *think* I recall all the 12V ins and outs being shorted solidly together within the PW-200 ... you could alternatively just run the P4 connector straight from your back panel 8-pin connector

I was wrong about this. Obviously, after a moment's thought. The PW200 doesn't regulate the 12V supply, but it *does* (obviously) have a switch which connects or opens it (to turn on the PC).
eitheta wrote:On the ATX power-supply connector, pins 21..24 are redundant

This too was an error on my part (working from memory = bad). The ATX connector is numbered differently than most 2xN headers - so the redundant pins are not 21..24. They're 11,12,23,24. My bad.
yetidaddy wrote:I understand the 12v wire and the ground wire. But what did you do with the ATX 24pin's PIN 4(5V) and PIN 16(PS/ON) ?
I do *nothing* with them except plug in the 20- to 24-pin adapter (that I bought) into them. If you want to use the PW200 with a mobo having a 24-pin ATX connector, then you should buy one of these adapters, like I did. It attaches the extra four pins to the correct sources among the 20 pins at the PW200 end. Then you can know that part is done correctly.
Actually - you said PW-200-M, didn't you?
I'm guessing then, that you're trying to plug the PW200M directly into the mobo, without any wires/adapter?
As I mentioned before, the 24-pin ATX connector is (AFAIK) back-compatible with 20-pin PSUs. You should (I *think*) be able to just plug the 20-pin PSU into a 24-pin mobo and leave the 4 remaining pins unconnected, and everything will work okay, for low-power systems.
But your question *still* doesn't make sense to me, since pins 4 & 16 are present in both the 20 and 24 pin variants. So I've no idea what you're asking here?
yetidaddy wrote: And there are 4 PCB holes on the pw-200. The 12v blue goes through one, black ground goes through one. What about the other two, the ground and the 5v ?

I don't follow what you're talking about here. "12v blue"? "the 5v"? My PW200V has:
1.) A pair of holes where the white & black inputs go. I trimmed that pair short, and spliced on my blue (would've used white if I'd had any) & black input wires (triplets) from my 8-pin rear-panel connector.
2.) A 2x4 grid of 8 holes...
2.a.) Four holes have the HDD/optical power lead (12V,GND,GND,5V) attached - I left these as-is.
2.b.) Four holes for the ATX-P4 (2 holes for 12V, 2 holes for GND).
Maybe your PW-200-M is different from my PW-200-V.

yetidaddy
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Post by yetidaddy » Sun Jun 13, 2010 2:14 pm

sorry, i have the pw-200-v. I made sure i ordered this one after reading this so that we have the same pcb holes and etc.

I see, so you cut the black and white cable and connect the white to the blue cables and the black to the black cables. That's 6 cables. The other two you just left it alone? Thanks for clearing that up.

How does the P4 Cable attach to the 4-holes above the HDD ? Yellow goes to each on the end and the black ones goes to the middle?

yetidaddy
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Post by yetidaddy » Tue Jun 15, 2010 9:05 am

so you only use 6 wires in your 8-pin connector?
3x blue and 3x black?

I was confused because in the guide you said you left 1-4, and 13-16 so that means you have 8 wires and I was wondering what you did with the extra two since I only see 6 wires in your pictures.

yetidaddy
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Post by yetidaddy » Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:21 pm

Image

I went to radioshack and I couldn't find the 2-pin header that you use for the trigger. But, are these ok?

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Re: Antec NSK1300 with PW-200-V DC-DC and Akasa Evo-120

Post by mattlach » Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:41 pm

eitheta wrote: Various threads (e.g. 28246,29018) have discussed modding the Dell 150W or 220W AC/DC adapters for use with DC/DC desktops. I'd rather not burn my house down, so I opened my brick and traced out enough of the DC end of the circuit to convince myself that the adapter does work as simply as the various forum posts suggest. Dell has multiple sources for these 220W bricks. Most people mention Delta. Mine happens to be made by HiPro (ZVC220HD12S1). The Dell end of it should be the same, regardless of the manufacturer. The cable is 8 conductor, though pin 1 is unused.
Image
The pinout, numbered as in the picture, is:
1: N/C. Soldered to a through-hole in the adapter's PCB, but that through-hole is not connected to anything else on the PCB.
2,3,4 : +12V. Three white wires to carry the outbound current. Two meters of 16 gauge copper is about 24 mOhm, and 18 Amps through that would be about a 425 mV drop, so this adapter triples the wire, dividing the drop by three (i.e. 142 mV at max current). The three wires solder together into one big hole in the adapter's PCB.
Pin 5 : 'Trigger.' There's a pullup resistor in the brick which causes this signal to float up to a few volts. Short this line to ground, and the adapter goes from Standby (amber LED) to On (green LED).
Pins 6,7,8 : Ground. Three black 16g wires. They have to carry all that 18 A current back to the adapter, so unfortunately, this means that 'ground' inside this PC is up to 142 mV higher potential than earth. All three are soldered together into one hole in the adapter's PCB ground plane.

Question,

Say I needed more power for a video card in a computer with a non-replaceable power supply...

Could I just get one of these AC adapters, lop off the connector, solder and shrink sleeve wrap the 3 12v wires and 3 ground wires to a 6 pin PCI express (PEG) connector and use it as a supplemental power supply?

Image

Pinout:

Code: Select all

Pin 01: 12V+ (yellow)          Pin 04: Ground (black)
Pin 02: 12V+ (yellow)          Pin 05: Ground (black)
Pin 03: 12V+ (yellow)          Pin 06: Ground (black)
How could I connect pin 5 from the AC adapter to the computer to have them power on simultaneoously? Would it be sufficient to wire pin 5 to any ground connection off of a 4 pin molex drive power connector to achieve this?

Much appreciated,
Matt

DAve_M
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Re: Antec NSK1300 with PW-200-V DC-DC and Akasa Evo-120

Post by DAve_M » Sun Nov 28, 2010 8:23 pm

mattlach, I've thought about doing something like that. I think you can feed the graphics card with 12v continuously. When the PC is off, the graphics card will not be using any power. The external DELL PSU will be wasting more power that it should this way unless you can make use of that standby switch. Putting a jumper across will power it up even when the computer is off. Not sure how you can turn it on/off automatically though. With relays you could. Must be a cheaper way though.

DumpALump
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Re: Antec NSK1300 with PW-200-V DC-DC and Akasa Evo-120

Post by DumpALump » Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:03 am

I know this is an old thread, but wanted to thank you guys for your knowledge on mating the DA-2. Cheap power brick ($20 off ebay) and it works well. Figured this would be the best thread to post.

Picopsu 160XT
I3 2100
MSI H61m-e33 (Got in on the mobo + CPU $100 deal)
4 Hitachi 2TB 5k3000
8gb Ram

I did pretty much the same thing, except a few changes. Since the connector I got was from a 20-24 pin adapter I didn't have the pins like eitheta did, instead I had 18ga wires coming out. I didn't want to wait for some new crimp pins so I went ahead and left about 2 inches of wire from the connector. Then I made 6 16ga wires long enough to reach the picopsu (3 for ground, 3 for +12v). I also cut a 4 pin power wire I had laying around. Stripped about 2cm from all of the wires and soldered them together. Took the idea to solder the cpu 4 pin directly to the power brick's connector from here viewtopic.php?t=55248 . Was a bit of work to get a good mechanical crimp/twist before soldering them together. Then a bit of electrical tape and finally heatshrink.

Since I was cutting away a connector I left an empty socket on both sides. Then I cut those two sockets about half way back so that they could be used to hold the connector in place. With the gd05b there is a fan grill in back that I just routed a twist tie (get them off electronics) through the socket then back through the grill and twist. Not a professional look, but no one sees the back of the htpc anyways.

The voltage at the end of my DA-2 was something like 12.37v. At the end of the wires that plugged into the picopsu it measured 12.37v. On my mobo in bios it reads 12.34v. I was thinking of shortening the DA-2 wire, but with it already at 12.34v I don't see a need.

I added tiny copper heatsinks to most of the components on the picopsu with thermal tape. Even on top of the capacitors. I have a tendency to put heatsinks on everything.

I also took the connectors that connects to HD's and soldered on some 18ga wire. Since the manual states the connectors are only good up to 3A I used two connectors, 1 connector per two HDs. Even though the HDs only pull 2A each at startup, I figured might as well to make sure the connector doesn't go bad.

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