Bench Power Supply Resetting Thingy

June 25, 2012 by Jake W 14 Comments

As is common among some hackers, [Henry] re-purposed an ATX power supply unit to function as a bench power supply for testing circuits on a breadboard (much like this fancy example).

However, safety mechanisms on some modern PC PSUs do not automatically reset after over-current protection has kicked in, which soon became annoying for [Henry]. In order to make his power supply more hacker-friendly, he wired up and programmed an ATtiny85V, using some Arduino libraries, to do that for him. This simple project is a great example of using a hack to improve a pre-existing hack.

ATX Psu Turned Into An Adjustable Voltage Bench Supply

December 9, 2010 by Mike Szczys 37 Comments

Here’s a fancy way to convert an ATX powers supply into a bench supply. [TG] didn’t just cut off the motherboard connector and add banana plugs, but improved the functionality. Right off the bat you’ll notice that he’s added a control panel. There is an Ammeter and Ohmmeter to let you know what the unit is putting out. He added an MIC29152WT adjustable voltage regulator so that he’s not limited to the fixed voltages of the psu. As a final touch he added an external voltage probe which can be used with the flick of a switch. It’s no replacement for a proper bench supply, especially since it doesn’t have adjustable current limiting, but it’s a nice improvement upon previous psu hacks.

Making Mobile Audio Work At Home

July 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 45 Comments

[Nikita] made a great find while cleaning out his garage: a set of audio amplifiers from a 1986 Volvo. After a bit of testing, he dislodged a stuck relay and set out to use these amps for a home audio system. He grabbed some left over brackets from his TV mount and used them as rail mounts. On the back he wired standard speaker connectors and RCA connectors to the wiring harness for the amplifiers. The final aspect is powering up the device, for which he used his ATX psu previously modified as a bench supply. 130-Watts of power for the cost of a few connectors.

We surprise to find we haven’t covered this common ATX bench-supply conversion before. What we have seen is an adapter to use one as a bench supply.

Compaq Motherboard Power Mod

July 9, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

cpq2atx_brd2

Some companies insist on using proprietary pieces. It can be really frustrating when there is no apparent reason other than consumer lock in. It irritates us to feel like we’re being forced to buy their pieces. This is one of the more popular reasons listed when you ask a hacker or modder what got them started. This project takes us through making a normal power supply work with the compaq proprietary 14 pin plug found in some smaller desktop PCs.

Aside from the plug itself being different, the motherboards require a 3.3v standby voltage. A normal power supply usually only has a 5v. Though there are even simpler ways of bypassing the issue, he chose to put an inline voltage regulator. Schematics are available on the site.

[via Hacked Gadgets]