Power supply trickery

[RSB]

I have looked on the net and I know you can with some drilling and tinkering mod a psu to be a bench power supply but this is not what I want to be doing. After talking to a few people who own CB Radios “Old Ones” they use a psu but all they do is something along the lines of put a bulb across two of the pins or something like that to get a 12v supply. Any one here seen or done something like this that can explain it to me? 🙂

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Dave Rice]

I think you mean that to start the PSU you short out 2 pins on the motherboard which in turn does the same to 2 pins on the ATX plug?

If so have a look here

[JayCeeDee]

What is it you are hoping to achieve, Lee? What are you looking to power on the bench? Drop a few details and maybe someone like OldLes could give you some advice. He’s designed and built a power box to drive some heavy duty lathes. There could well be a better option than butchering/modifying a PSU.

[RSB]

It is a CB Radio I am powering. I think I have found the info I need and will give it a whirl this evening.

?

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Richard]

As I remember you need a momentary strap across the relevant pins, not a permanent one. I am not sure what a jumper would do if it was left in place for a long time. On the other hand I do not know who you would tell a PSU to stop when you were finished.

[JayCeeDee]

Wouldn’t a 12v laptop power unit provide enough power to the CB?? What sort of current are you looking at??

 

Google tells me between 2 and 5 amps at the outside. 5A is for the very powerful 50w TX. Also thinking about it, you could go up to 14/15v without too much fuss.

[RSB]

It is about the AMP’S and has to be similar to a supply from a car battery as these use to belong in a motor. I have used a multi-adapter but that is low on amp’s and I am sure I’ll be sacrificing range/reception/quality using it. I have seen other do the same with a PSU for there CB’s and all is good so I am sure my will be. Besides, it can only catch on fire and burn the house down once :yahoo:

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Bob Williams]

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[Richard]

Battery, plus battery charger, job done.

[RSB]

I don’t really like the idea of a car battery and charger in my house B-)

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Richard]

Not exactly car batteries, but I have at least one sealed type from a vehicle class in the house and have had for the past 25 years – not the same battery! I think this is number 4 or 5.

[Dave Rice]

There’s plenty of high wattage 12vc DC PSUs (power bricks) about for use with pico ATX “PSU”s, I have one. The mini-itx store has them up to 192w = 16A

There’s also 12v Dc power supplies for powering many analogue CCTV systems at once. But a quick check is whilst they have a high total amperage, each port is limited to 1.6A

[Ed P]

From what I can see the average PSU puts out about 200 watts per /12v rail (16A), this seems to be mid-range for CBD power supplies – the mega ones seem to be 30A but average around 15A

[Author]

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