- Sep 12, 2015
- 4
- 0
- 4,510
Hello all!
I know this is a forum mainly for working with PCs, but it still seems to be the most appropriate place to ask.
I plan to power various electronics projects with a PC power supply, which conveniently has the 5V and 12V rails I need and with more current than you find in your standard phone charger style power supplies. I used the method of connecting the green PS-ON wire to ground to turn it on, but after a while the power supply suddenly stopped working. Turns out they need a minimum current to be drawn from some lines to stay functional, and not drawing enough power can break them. Oops!
So, I went back and bought a new super cheap PSU (I only need 10A per voltage at most). Unfortunately, I can't find any details on the minimum current it needs. It's a Linkworld brand, model "LPK2-35EP5 / 450W". Since googling that doesn't come up with much, here's the sticker:
The label seems to say it has 2 12V lines, but considering the price I doubt it, and my multimeter tells me all 12V wires are connected to each other. I can't say how accurate the rest of that label is either. (EDIT: after some thought, this might be referring to fuses on different rails, but having them connected to the same source. Maybe, I don't know much about PC power supplies. All 12V wires are the same colour yellow.)
So, the question: what kind of load would I need to put on each power line to keep it alive? I'll sometimes only be using the 5V line, sometimes only the 12V line(s?) with varying loads, and sometimes both. What kind of load resistors would that need per voltage?
Alternatively, how do I fix a power supply that failed from too little power draw? Nothing obvious is broken (fuse and caps are fine). Probably not fixable, but it would be nice to not have to throw it away.
I know this is a forum mainly for working with PCs, but it still seems to be the most appropriate place to ask.
I plan to power various electronics projects with a PC power supply, which conveniently has the 5V and 12V rails I need and with more current than you find in your standard phone charger style power supplies. I used the method of connecting the green PS-ON wire to ground to turn it on, but after a while the power supply suddenly stopped working. Turns out they need a minimum current to be drawn from some lines to stay functional, and not drawing enough power can break them. Oops!
So, I went back and bought a new super cheap PSU (I only need 10A per voltage at most). Unfortunately, I can't find any details on the minimum current it needs. It's a Linkworld brand, model "LPK2-35EP5 / 450W". Since googling that doesn't come up with much, here's the sticker:
The label seems to say it has 2 12V lines, but considering the price I doubt it, and my multimeter tells me all 12V wires are connected to each other. I can't say how accurate the rest of that label is either. (EDIT: after some thought, this might be referring to fuses on different rails, but having them connected to the same source. Maybe, I don't know much about PC power supplies. All 12V wires are the same colour yellow.)
So, the question: what kind of load would I need to put on each power line to keep it alive? I'll sometimes only be using the 5V line, sometimes only the 12V line(s?) with varying loads, and sometimes both. What kind of load resistors would that need per voltage?
Alternatively, how do I fix a power supply that failed from too little power draw? Nothing obvious is broken (fuse and caps are fine). Probably not fixable, but it would be nice to not have to throw it away.
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