Saturday, October 2, 2010

Convert PC ATX PSU into Lab PSU

Lately, I'm been playing with some heavily sulphated LA-batteries. Some are small, others are big.
Realizing I need a better power supply to charge those batteries in parallel, I intended to buy high-current transformer. Unfortunately enough, the price are way too high for me.

Stuck? Not yet! I suddenly just noticed that I have bunch of old PC PSU lying doing nothing in my storage box.
I did convert some of those into my lab PSU. But, the voltage is kinda fixed. Almost no chance of charging those batteries.
I Google'd on how to convert those PSU into variable SMPS.
Then, I found this site: Uzzors2k.

So, here's my version:

The victim

Specs.

Modded!

The 10k pot.

Yeah, I'm lazy to clean those junks! Lol!
(Two black-coloured wires connected to the pot.)

Done!

12V, 40W, being lit with 3V supply from the PSU.

Showing the power output without the mod.

I can vary the voltage up to 13.7V before cut-off triggered.

Now, the PSU is being tortured! I'm running an automotive air-cond blower.10 amps!

Here's the output when I turned the pot. Can't go higher voltage, connecting wire is too hot.
(I'm using cheap wire, :-P)

I even try to charge this battery cell. 2V of course.

Here's the stock output.

Here's the output at 3.3V rail with the mod

This is the voltage without the load.

Well, I guess that's it! I don't know what to type. Way too tired.
I now have a new battery charger!
I'm very happy with the mod done. Thanks Uzzors2k for supplying great instruction!


See ya' later!

1 comment:

Nancytygx said...
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