[Uncle Vinnie]

I had this somewhat old computer power supply at home, that I didn't throw out when I upgraded my computer with a 800W power supply.
Running duo video card the 430W just didn't cut it.

I know everyone can get a 12v power source for $30 at Hobby King, but isn't it more fun doing one yourself.....

For you guys that live in Toronto you probably can get this done for under $10 by getting all the stuff at Active Surplus on Queen St.

Up here in Barrie I don't have the luxury of having access to a store like that, so I have to pay full price on the connectors.




Lets start off with the power supply 430W, 32Amp capacity in the 12V rail and 20Amp at the 5V and 3.3V
I was only going to do a 12V power source, however the 5V and 3V are also available might as well just do them too, you never know if I might need them in the future.

[Uncle Vinnie]

We are going to look at the 24 pin connector (the larger one) the wires of interest are the Green and Black wire beside the green wire
These two wires is what makes the power supply turn on and off, when connection is open there is no power going through the power supply, close the circuit and power goes on.

Cut these 2 wires from the 24 pin connector and remove them from the sleeve, older power supplies will not have any sleeves on the wires. These two wires will need to be soldered together to have a connection all the time, the power supply switch will turn the power on and off.

[Uncle Vinnie]

Let's take a look at what's inside this 430W power supply, lots of wires, 3 nice heatsinks and lots of other stuff that we are not going to get into.

Let's take the green and black wire and put them out of the way so we don't cut them by mistake.
There are a couple of wires you really don't need, so I removed them, you can leave them if you want just make sure you heat shrink them so they don't cause a short circuit.
The Gray wire tells the computer the DC voltages are within normal range for proper operation, you can actually connect a LED to this wire that let's you know power is good.
The Purple wire is a stand by voltage of 5V.

[Uncle Vinnie]

First thing we're going to do is cut off all the connectors ends and remove all the mesh sleeves, you will end up with a mess of wires.
To keep things organized we will separate them by color and it's not as bad as it seems.

Black is ground we all know that.
Yellow is 12V and there are 12 of them
Red is 5V there are 8 of them
Orange is 3.3V and 4 of them

[dashpuppy]

for 10$ on ebay you can just buy the HP server grade psu's witch can take a beating.. This idea would be good for small chargers etc etc..

[HAL9KPCM]

Just be sure to use good power supplies. There are some real junk ones, easily identifiable by the high tech test, does it hardly weight anything? Those ones are borderline dangerous designs. I was in the computer business for 10 years and saw many of those cheap ones take out numerous devices attached to them and even start fires. The HP server ones, exactly, those can take a beating big time. The Corsair you have shown in this demo, again, a good power supply.

[Uncle Vinnie]

I've drill the holes to where my connectors will be mounted and decided to go with two 12V connectors, one 5V and one 3.3V, you never know might need them in the future and it's not like it's taking any space.

This section is where I need some input as I do not know this for sure.
The power supply states it provides 32amps of current through the 12V source, please someone correct me if I'm wrong but this means all twelve 12V lines combined will provide 32amps of current, that means it's 2.66Amps per line.

I'm looking at it as they all are connected in parallel, voltage remains the same but amperage increases, just like batteries, if you connect them in series your Voltage increases, but if you connected in parallel amps will increase.

If the above is true, I'm going to have two 12V connections one running 7 wires with the capability of generating 18.2 amps and the second running 5 wires generating 13amps.

Someone please confirm this so I can continue to the next step.
Thank you

[Uncle Vinnie]

On the next step I've installed the connectors to the power supply and solder all the wires to the appropriate connector.

Notice between the Green and Black wire there was no hole and after the wires been connected there is a hole, at the last minute i decided to install a ON Red light, at first I decided I could see the fan spinning and it would be sufficient to let me know the system was on and at last minute I decided it was not enough, I wanted a light.

[Uncle Vinnie]

Don't forget to solder the black and green wire in order to have power.
My little light switch and the finished product.

[Uncle Vinnie]

The voltages are reading correctly.
Will it work if put to the test, we'll have to wait and see.
I only have a 5amp charger, I'll try that tomorrow, but I do have a 20amp charger on order we'll see how that goes, I'll keep you guys updated.