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Have you ever wanted to see what's inside a computer power supply?
Well here's your chance.
P.S. this is my first Instructable so I hope it's good enough
Caution: Don't do this at home unless you know about the risk of shocking yourself even after turning it off! If you want to take that risk, Always discharge those 1 or 2 large mains filtering capacitors by jumpering the green wire in the 20 or 24 pin ATX plug to a black wire in the same plug while the PSU is unplugged. You should hear a click. Remove the jumper and disassemble.
You might want some rubber gloves to keep your hands from getting electrified
Don't forget to rate if you like it and comment, I accept constructive criticism
Well here's your chance.
P.S. this is my first Instructable so I hope it's good enough
Caution: Don't do this at home unless you know about the risk of shocking yourself even after turning it off! If you want to take that risk, Always discharge those 1 or 2 large mains filtering capacitors by jumpering the green wire in the 20 or 24 pin ATX plug to a black wire in the same plug while the PSU is unplugged. You should hear a click. Remove the jumper and disassemble.
You might want some rubber gloves to keep your hands from getting electrified
Don't forget to rate if you like it and comment, I accept constructive criticism
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Signing UpStep 1A look inside the power supply
This particular power supply has a un-switched output meaning the output always has voltage. the rectifier down the bottom of the psu uses 4 diodes to change AC to DC. On the primary side of the board, we see the X-Y caps dominate the space. They serve as the mains filters. Lower down, just to the right of the torroid, are some yellow rectangles. These are caps designed to help the power supply handle surges and inrush current. To the right of the fuse is another inductor (the white thing) used for more mains filtering. It may actually be an isolation transformer. In the middle, we see the heatsinks. attached to them are the mosfets, used to raise the frequency of the AC. This allows the transformers to be smaller, and results in less ripple to be filtered out. On the upper right is the voltage regulating parts. On the heatsinks are more Vregs. On the upper right is the secondary side, with its filter capacitors and inductor.
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i may have an instructable in this... i have the rest of the system figured, the 4 truck batteries will be a killer, just getting them home on the bus.
*does some math* If you had a PSU wanting 170VDC, you'd need a bit over 14 12V batteries. I could imagine how fun that would be to take home on the bus.
Good luck!
so, there has to be rectified dc at some low voltage, otherwise the switching section would only be on a few percent of the time. i figure it's likely to be at most 15vrms into the rectifier.
course, if it really is designed to switch rectified line voltage, that'd be nutty...
There is rectified DC before and after the transformers.
'Tis designed to switch line voltages, if I can find a power supply, I'll grab the part numbers on the switching devices, they'll more than likely be rated for 400V or so.
It's part number is 2SK2765, if you want to check it out.
My finger got blue and i couldn't feel it for like 10 minutes
But seriously, those heatsinks of which you speak have voltage in the range of 150 - 170 VDC.
Usually the heatsinks aren't insulated from the transistors/diodes, soyou might have gotten a low voltave shock or a high voltage shock at whoknows what frequency.
I touched the heatsink, yelled for like 4 seconds smoke came on one of the capacitors and the PSU died...
My heart started bumping like a 12" subwoofer i didn't felt my finger and i started feeling immortal (like when you try amphetamine for the 1'st time...).
DUDE thats exactly what i did with mine i used the box to make a thermoelectric heater/cooler with a peltier unit i think ill post a slide show of what it looks like, unfortunately i forgot about making an ible for it :(