Power Supplys Attempt (2)

[FJB203 at aol.com]

>  have you considered using a standard PC power supply.  They
>  cost about $30.  All you need to drive it is either 120VAC
>  or about 160VDC.  IOW, instead of trying to build everything,
>  you could build a 12 to 160 volt supply and it wouldn't
>  even have to be regulated.  Then just tie it into the
>  PC supply right after the input bridge rectifier.

Yes, that would be an ideal situation, for I have a large box of PC power
supplies rotting away in the basement.  However, I do have a 12V to 120V
inverter, and plugged the PC power supply (well, the whole PC, minus the
monitor and accessories) and attempted to boot the PC.  Both the Inverter and
the PC powersupply got real hot.  I know the inverter was being used over its
small puny limit, so that made sense why I could cook on it, however the PC
power supply also overheated.  Worked fine on AC.  I had *guessed* its one of
two things... the AC inverter I had doesn't put out a sine wave, but possibly
a square wave and the PC power supply didn't like it, or as the inverter got
hot, its regulation drifted into space.

Being that I'd like to embed the entire PC somewhere, I'd rather not use a PC
power supply, but in this case, reinventing the wheel so to speak will allow
me to make the board small, compact, and shove it deep onto the firewall
somewhere without an ugly box.  I'm trying to make this vehicle as "off the
line" looking as possible.

But its a great suggestion Tom :)  BTW, do you know of any websites offhand
that might have such a schematic?  I could easily enter the schematic into my
Orcad software and produce a nice, clean PC board trace :).

Thanks!

Frederic Breitwieser
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