Power Supply A Guide to 12V PSU

[NateDawg72]

Very nice to see you get it working. I'm not sure if you mentioned it before, but what is your case and final build components?

I don't think I mentioned it before, it is:

Ryzen 5 2600
Asrock b350 itx
16gb DDR4 3200
Gtx 1080 (evga SC with morpheous II)
Crucial mx300 1tb m.2

For case I'd like to build my own but that's for later. Right now it's an open bench on the motherboard tray I got for the case.

 

[Thehack]

I don't think I mentioned it before, it is:

Ryzen 5 2600
Asrock b350 itx
16gb DDR4 3200
Gtx 1080 (evga SC with morpheous II)
Crucial mx300 1tb m.2

For case I'd like to build my own but that's for later. Right now it's an open bench on the motherboard tray I got for the case.

Will you be feeding the GPU with or without loadswitch?

 

[NateDawg72]

Will you be feeding the GPU with or without loadswitch?

Without loadswitch. This is actually my first electronics project beyond building PCs so most of it has been new to me. I've heard loadswitch before but I don't know what those look like and how they are wired up.

I mentioned to Guryhwa that I got a meanwell unit in his discord chat and he seemed to be saying he can make a archdeamon unit for it. Think his kit would include a load switch? I'll need to ask him I guess

 

[Thehack]

Without loadswitch. This is actually my first electronics project beyond building PCs so most of it has been new to me. I've heard loadswitch before but I don't know what those look like and how they are wired up.

I mentioned to Guryhwa that I got a meanwell unit in his discord chat and he seemed to be saying he can make a archdeamon unit for it. Think his kit would include a load switch? I'll need to ask him I guess

Yes. His units are properly controlled. If you don't have a load switch, 12V will always be applied to the pc components. This means that the LED and fans may stay on when you turn off your PC.

I will also be releasing my Distro 400, which does additional power filtering and has load switch.

 

[NateDawg72]

Yes. His units are properly controlled. If you don't have a load switch, 12V will always be applied to the pc components. This means that the LED and fans may stay on when you turn off your PC.

I will also be releasing my Distro 400, which does additional power filtering and has load switch.

Alright, I might be okay with it for now but we will see. If not then I'll go for G-Unique or Distro 400. I would need to have more cables with DIstro 400 than G-Unique wouldn't I?

Made the PCIe 6+2 cable this morning, courtesy of a innocent cable set for a TFX PSU. I'm now writing this message from my desktop running on Meanwell going to be throwing some of my normal workloads at it and see how everything holds up.

My only issue so far is that the cables on my PicoPsu 160 XT interfere with fan placement on the PSU so PSU is resting on the table rather than where I wanted it on the tray.

 

[Thehack]

The distro 400 is more versatile overall, and uses regular connectors that you can replace. It also does more filtering, so if you're experimenting with out of spec psus it useful in that situation.

The g-unique is smaller and allows you to get some really compact builds in. But the wires are soldered to achieve that small size.

Make sure your output wiring are hefty and use larger diameter wires where you can.

 

[NateDawg72]

My CPU output wiring maybe needs a little more heft, it's just 18 AWG

For GPU I did 14 AWG -> 3 x 18 AWG (from donor cable, since I don't have terminals to crimp). This should be adequate right?

 

[Thehack]

My CPU output wiring maybe needs a little more heft, it's just 18 AWG

For GPU I did 14 AWG -> 3 x 18 AWG (from donor cable, since I don't have terminals to crimp). This should be adequate right?

14 AWG sounds good. The 18AWG is fine if you're not overclocking much. Though I'd prefer 16 AWG for the plug in units.

 

[NateDawg72]

No overclocking, at least I wasn't planning on it It's handling things just fine so far

I should probably order some 16 AWG wire. The local store I got my wire, ring terminals, and butt connectors from didn't have 16 AWG so I ended up with 18 and 14

 

[Tossy]

I've got inspired by this thread to use the Mean Well PSU for my future project. Reading the test reports of the different versions of the PSU I came across different Ripple/Noise values which were not mentioned here as far as I have seen.

EPP-200: Ripple/Noise max. Specs 120mVp-p, Testresults 91.6mVp-p
EPP-300: Ripple/Noise max. Specs 120mVp-p, Testresults 28.8mVp-p

91.6mVp-p are still within ATX specs, but more close to the limit than the 28.8mVp-p.

What's your opinion about that?

 

[aquelito]

@Tossy : did you measure these values yourself ?
Ripple measured on the 12V line ?

Very useful anyway, thanks a lot. To be compared with Jonnyguru tests.

 

[Tossy]

No, I would'nt know how. These values are from the official MeanWell test results:
http://www.meanwellusa.com/productPdf.aspx?i=713&pdf=RVBQLTIwMC0xMi1ycHQucGRm&a=2

 

[Thehack]

I've got inspired by this thread to use the Mean Well PSU for my future project. Reading the test reports of the different versions of the PSU I came across different Ripple/Noise values which were not mentioned here as far as I have seen.

EPP-200: Ripple/Noise max. Specs 120mVp-p, Testresults 91.6mVp-p
EPP-300: Ripple/Noise max. Specs 120mVp-p, Testresults 28.8mVp-p

91.6mVp-p are still within ATX specs, but more close to the limit than the 28.8mVp-p.

What's your opinion about that?

My opinion is specs are specs. Jonnyguru one of the best third party tester consider <50mV very good, 75mV average. As long as it beats 120mv right?

Also note that some DC-DC boards have additional cap filter circuit, or LC filter circuit.

A lot of what we buy and do has more to do with marketing than making sense. You should the bullshit they pull on motherboards.

 

[NateDawg72]

91.6mVp-p are still within ATX specs, but more close to the limit than the 28.8mVp-p.

I think 28.8 is down right excellent. 91.6 is maybe a bit higher than average but that's still fine.

The EPP-400 based unit I'm using lands in the middle, 65.8mVp-p on meanwell's test report

 

[Duality92]

My opinion is specs are specs. Jonnyguru one of the best third party tester consider <50mV very good, 75mV average. As long as it beats 120mv right?

Also note that some DC-DC boards have additional cap filter circuit, or LC filter circuit.

A lot of what we buy and do has more to do with marketing than making sense. You should the bullshit they pull on motherboards.

Like what Gigabyte did with their advertisement for VRM phases lately.

 

[NateDawg72]

So I've been using my Meanwell unit for a couple days now and I had my first quirk/issue with it. The PC was shutdown but still connected to power, and I left it like that over night. In the morning I tried to power it on. The fans would spin briefly but it wouldn't boot.

I cut the power at the AC side for a few seconds and let the PSU power down. Then I turned power back on and it booted just fine.

@Thehack what are your thoughts? I don't know enough to have an idea why it would behave like that. For now I'm just flipping the switch on my power strip after I power down.

 

[Thehack]

So I've been using my Meanwell unit for a couple days now and I had my first quirk/issue with it. The PC was shutdown but still connected to power, and I left it like that over night. In the morning I tried to power it on. The fans would spin briefly but it wouldn't boot.

I cut the power at the AC side for a few seconds and let the PSU power down. Then I turned power back on and it booted just fine.

@Thehack what are your thoughts? I don't know enough to have an idea why it would behave like that. For now I'm just flipping the switch on my power strip after I power down.

It's messing with the logic due to the applied power while it is off. Nothing you can do about it without going to a 12V kit with a SYNC feature.

You can continue to do a manual power off on the AC side to prevent weird logic issues.

 

[NateDawg72]

Alright - so to make sure I understand, the issue is from the motherboard having power applied while it is supposed to be off?

I guess I'll need to get a quote from gury then. The 160XT input & output wires don't fit well with the layout I want so it would be nice to get an archdaemon regardless of the sync issue. Unless I just start hacking up the PicoPsu to get the wires where I want them.

 

[Thehack]

Alright - so to make sure I understand, the issue is from the motherboard having power applied while it is supposed to be off?

I guess I'll need to get a quote from gury then. The 160XT input & output wires don't fit well with the layout I want so it would be nice to get an archdaemon.

I do need to confirm something with a different user. The person noticed his computer did not power off completely, despite using the G-Unique PSU. I've noticed that this is a common issue with Asrock motherboard... seems just they way they connect their 12V rail causes weird logic issues.

I've confirmed my SYNC feature works as expected on my Asrock board.

 

[NateDawg72]

What exactly needs to be done to get SYNC working?

Can I just connect the 5VSB and PS_ON from the PicoPSU pins to the appropriate connectors on the EPP-400? Or would that be a bad idea?