Power Supply 500W FlexATX PSU

nextpc

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Jul 12, 2016
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Is that USD? That sounds alot better than I expected! :eek:
Yes, USD. But as iFreilicht says they are waiting for a model with -12V rail. So i'm not sure if the unit that's available in September will be any good.
I will check with FSP to confirm that the model does in fact have/havenot a -12V rail, as the specifications on their website is contradicting the spec sheet iFreilicht provided me.
 
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nextpc

Average Stuffer
Jul 12, 2016
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Interesting, though that seems to simply be a mistake on their part. Maybe point them towards that, that doesn't seem right at all.

I was looking at the feature sheets, mine compared to yours, and i believe the two model are different. The one that i linked looks different that yours. Check it out.
It may be that your model prefix IPC and the one that i linked doesn't have that prefix at all.
Your PSU model shown has a top mounted fan, and the one i linked has a bottom mounted fan.

Here's the link again;
http://www.fspgroupusa.com/ecommerce/ipc-psu/flex/500w/fsp500-50fspt.html

http://www.fsp-group.com.tw/pro/4/FSP500-50FSPT.pdf

I emailed FSP again to try and verify this and will update you when i get a reply.

What are your thoughts on this?
 

iFreilicht

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Is that USD? That sounds alot better than I expected! :eek:

That's about the price I am projecting, too, but with more complicated changes it could go up to 150 bucks, unfortunately. We'll have to see.

I imagine something like this could be done. It would probably be too big and expensive as a PCB, a short cable version is better with a small inline PCB but then the question appears of where the junction of the two connectors goes. A third options could be to build it into the modular cable itself.

That is waaaay too large. The best way to implement this (if it didn't fit into the PSU) would be to put a very small PCB on the front of the connector and supply it with power from the pins directly, but I think we can avoid that.

I was looking at the feature sheets, mine compared to yours, and i believe the two model are different. The one that i linked looks different that yours. Check it out.
It may be that your model prefix IPC and the one that i linked doesn't have that prefix at all.
Your PSU model shown has a top mounted fan, and the one i linked has a bottom mounted fan.

I don't think that's the case. They're both called FSP500-50FSPT, FSP USA wouldn't put a product up with the same name but different specs. I'm pretty sure they just transferred the specs poorly. Maybe they copied the page from a previous PSU and forgot to change some of the fields.

What exactly do you mean by top/bottom mounted fan? They're both on the back of the PSU.

I received the unit today and have already taken pictures, I'll be writing an update within the next hour.
 
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iFreilicht

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Update! PSU sample arrived!

Good news everyone! Today I picked up a package from customs, which was sent to me by the wonderful @ilovelampshade! Nobody is going to be surprised about what was in it, so let's take a look, shall we?

(This gallery isn't displaying correctly for me. If you've got the same problem, take a look here)


So, as you can see, the PSU itself is very cleverly designed and really fills every bit of available space with something. Almost. It seems like a -12V rail will be relatively easy to get, but it's not looking that well for modularity. @Hahutzy and I are already talking about what cable lengths would work nicely if none of the harnesses can be made modular.
I'll look into making changes to the casing as well, this would increase our chances of making the PSU modular and would increase efficiency for the fan. Regarding the fan, the beefy microcontroller makes me hopeful that the fan curve can also be adapted for a perfect balance between temperatures and noise.

I want to note that I will not be actively working on this project for a few weeks, as I'm having exams that I absolutely need to pass and will be on vacation afterwards. Questions will still be answered, and maybe I can get the ball rolling on a few other things, but only when I am sure I can sacrifice a few hours. Please be patient, active development will be continued on the 10th of September. Thank you for your continued support and understanding!
 
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iFreilicht

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Very cool! This is the one @ilovelampshade did the photoshoot with?
It's the stock SKU, so it won't have the -12V rail, correct?

Yes and yes. If it had a -12V rail, I would've already plugged it in ;)

I'll test it out with the -12V regulator on a breadboard first. Though, with the simplicity of the daughterboard, it should even be possible to mod that into the PSU directly. If we can't find enough people to buy a full unit, just selling an "upgrade" kit would be an alternative idea. It would just consist of a new daughterboard, maybe even just an add-on to the ATX24pin connector.
 

dtallon13

Cable Smoosher
Jul 11, 2016
10
1
I'll look into making changes to the casing as well, this would increase our chances of making the PSU modular and would increase efficiency for the fan. Regarding the fan, the beefy microcontroller makes me hopeful that the fan curve can also be adapted for a perfect balance between temperatures and noise.

I want to note that I will not be actively working on this project for a few weeks, as I'm having exams that I absolutely need to pass and will be on vacation afterwards. Questions will still be answered, and maybe I can get the ball rolling on a few other things, but only when I am sure I can sacrifice a few hours. Please be patient, active development will be continued on the 10th of September. Thank you for your continued support and understanding!

If the casing is going to be changed, can a deeper fan be put in?

Good luck on your exams and have a nice vacation
 

iFreilicht

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Look what found its way onto a breadboard of mine:



Unfortunately I'm missing a few support components, so those need to be ordered before I can test this thing.
 

iFreilicht

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Update! It lives! Modularity?

Finally I found the time to get this together! All the components for the -12V rail arrived, thanks to @EdZ, who helped me a great deal with component selection! I tested the circuit a week ago, but now I've made a small EPS12V-to-2xPEG6 adaptor to test it with my GPU and made an actual connection to pin 14 on the ATX connector.

Behold:


So I'm running Prime95 and Heaven as I'm typing this, and boy, that unit is a lot quieter than every FlexATX PSU I have ever had, even with the partially blocked exhaust. (Apart from the one I modded to fit an 80mm fan, of course) If you're going for a silent PC, it's not going to be for you, but in idle I can barely hear it, even while it's sitting less than a metre from my head, and when running just Unigine or any Game Benchmark, my dual-fan 970 is a lot louder than the PSU fan.

The fan also has a very nice sound to it when gaming. No whining, just a pleasant and surprisingly deep whooshing noise. It gets a little whiny when stressing the CPU as well, but I don't have a Killawatt yet, so you/ll have to wait for a tangible load-to-noise test.

What's interesting and a little annoying is that the fan will spin up at its full RPM when starting the system, which is quite loud. While this let's me know that the fan is far from it's maximum RPM with the short dirty tests I'm throwing at it now, I'll ask FSP to fix this behaviour in the final unit. I assume this is a self-test so the PSU can refuse to start up if the fan is not turning properly, which is nice for IPC uses, but no good in a consumer PSU.

Most importantly, in comparison to the SSP-300SUG, my setup doesn't crash. The PSU is rock solid and even during heavy testing when the fan spins up a little more than average, it can quickly recover. I'm far from reaching the maximum load on this thing, and that makes it all the better.

Modularity and cables:

So the current state on this is as follows:

There will be no modular connectors on the PSU itself. The poll clearly showed that there are cases where less than 20mm of space will be available in front of the PSU. Most importantly, the Hutzy XS will be quite limited in that area, and it is one of the most popular planned builds that involve this PSU. So even if flush modular connectors were possible (which they aren't), installing the PSU in such cases would be a nightmare or straight out impossible.

But, to redeem this, the SATA, PEG (GPU) and EPS (CPU) power connectors will be on very short cables, which can be extended with any old extension cable from the store, no need to mod anything or make your own extension. These short cables also allow configurations where devices are sitting very close to the PSU and will use up minimum space for people who don't need them at all.

The ATX cable will be long enough to support pretty much all configurations but as short as possible to prevent cable clutter in situations where the ATX connector is close to the PSU.

The current lengths for the cables are:

SATA/PEG/EPS: 8cm
ATX: 18cm

The is the next-best thing to semi-modularity we can get.

The following connectors will be present on the PSU:

SATA: 1x or 2x
PEG: 1x 6+2pin, 1x 6pin
EPS: 1x 4+4pin
ATX: 1x 20+4pin

I'm still a little torn on the SATA connectors. On one hand, more than 40% claimed to be using two SATA-powered devices, but on the other hand even more people will be using one or zero SATA devices. So it seems like having one connector and including a splitter seems like a good middle-of-the-road solution, but maybe there are differing opinions.

Two 6+2 pin connectors will not be possible, though. The limitations on the power draw are just too tight. It might still be doable if you use an adaptor, but you'll be doing that on your own risk.

So, that's it for now. Things are looking good, as far as I'm concerned. I will go on vacation on Tuesday, so don't expect any further updates during that time. I'll have internet, though, so I should be able to reply if you've got any questions or concerns. Have a nice day and thank you for reading!
 

BirdofPrey

Standards Guru
Sep 3, 2015
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If you're already running a wire, I figure you might as well put two SATA connectors on it.

On a side note. Why does 20+4 even still exist? Does anyone even still make 20 Pin ATX motherboards?
 

iFreilicht

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Well the wire is only 8cm long, which comfortably reaches a 2.5" drive atop the PSU, so those two connectors can't be "in series" like they normally are on PSUs.

A small number of people will be using mainboards with 20pin ATX connectors, according to the survey. They might be wrong, and there might be space on the board to plug a 24pin connector in anyway, but I want to make sure everything fits for as many people as I can.
 

iFreilicht

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Maybe I should lend the unit to a review site that can do proper load testing on it after competing the -12V mod? They'd be able to do much more detailed testing than me.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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The problem is PSU reviews don't make much money so I'm not sure if anyone with the equipment would want to review something so niche. So if you can find someone willing to do that, that'd be awesome.
 

h_tylr

Cable Smoosher
Sep 4, 2016
12
2
I read this thread, and decided to do some digging of my own on this topic, primarily the same size and wattage PSU as wanted, including the wanted cables e.t.c, to see if there was anything in the realms of the internet. I understand that a lot of planning, and physical testing has gone into this, and admire your ongoing effort you have put in to to what seemingly will become one of the best (if not the best) consumer orientated FlexATX PSU out there so please don't take this as a negative, but more a heads up to a product that is out there on the market already.

The product in question is the 'Athena Power AP-MFATX50P8 500W FlexATX' PSU. in short, it is exactly the same size as the unit that you are working with, the same wattage, has all needed rails (including -12v) and all wanted connectors (plus more, but a soldering iron/wire cutters would make short work of those). The main downside I can see is it's 80+ rating only being silver, which in a small build could be a slight inconvenience heat production wise, and is obviously worse than the PSU you are working on. (links to the PSU - newegg purchasing link - manufacturers page link)

Thanks for your time!
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
3,382
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Hey h-tylr,

We've considered this unit before, but the quality is utter trash and the unit doesn't come close to meeting its power rating. General rule of thumb is to avoid Athena like the plague.
 
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