Power Supply A Guide to 12V PSU

Thehack

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I remember that this was discussed somewhere in this thread. Specs wise it looks like it'll work. I dismissed it because even though it has the highest power density it's about $150-200. Pretty darn expensive.
 

aquelito

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Very interesting unit.
According to the manual, it is designed to be PCB-mounted, right ?
I did not find any "standard" PCB made by Cosel though.

Would have been the perfect solution if it was not for the price...
 
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jØrd

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I did not find any "standard" PCB made by Cosel though.
They dont, they publish a PCB reference design though. This looks like it isnt aimed at end users so much as its aimed at people who are developing hardware / product and want an off the shelf power supply they can just integrate into it. A very quick look also suggests you need to provide your own voltage reference to it as well in some cases. It also looks like its intended to be heatsinked, either to whatever product your integrating it into or to the optional 'sink they sell for it, there is mention of derating curves towards the end of the manual.

EDIT: Page 10 of the manual has a diagram and parts list of external components that are needed to run the unit. Whilst i am very, very far from an expert on the topic it appears that the only way to really use this w/ much of anything would be to fabricate a carrier board & some sort of heatsink solution for it at a minimum.
 
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EdZ

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It does look like an extremely interesting option if you want to watercool though. Slap a flat heat exchanger on it (along with waterblocks for the CPU, GPU, and motherboard VRMs) and every component in the machine that generates any appreciable amount of heat will be cooled by the same shared radiator(s), leaving you with very little requirement for airflow through the case for the remaining components. You could cram the components together extremely tightly and use the rest of the volume for a large radiator, even with very high power components.
 

aquelito

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EDIT: Page 10 of the manual has a diagram and parts list of external components that are needed to run the unit. Whilst i am very, very far from an expert on the topic it appears that the only way to really use this w/ much of anything would be to fabricate a carrier board & some sort of heatsink solution for it at a minimum.

Yes, that's why I tried to look for a ready-to-buy PCB made by Cosel. They only give a general design guideline.

Is there any company that could produce such a PCB, with all the needed certifications ?

Would be the dream PSU of my next build...
 
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jØrd

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Yes, that's why I tried to look for a ready-to-buy PCB made by Cosel. They only give a general design guideline.

Is there any company that could produce such a PCB, with all the needed certifications ?
The market their pushing this product at isnt a market that wants or needs ready made carrier boards. Im sure you could pay someone to design one for you & push it through cert but i expect you would pay out the ass for it. It doesnt look like a very complex PCB would be needed just to get it up and running though, i would hazard a guess there are the prerequisite skills on this forum to make it happen if enough people are interested in doing so.
 
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0xdec

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Looking at the manual, the carrier board could probably be designed in a day and would be fairly cheap in terms of BOM, but the modules themselves are just so freaking expensive. Shame too, since it looks like the 300/500/700W versions are all interchangeable.
 

aquelito

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The market their pushing this product at isnt a market that wants or needs ready made carrier boards. Im sure you could pay someone to design one for you & push it through cert but i expect you would pay out the ass for it. It doesnt look like a very complex PCB would be needed just to get it up and running though, i would hazard a guess there are the prerequisite skills on this forum to make it happen if enough people are interested in doing so.

I can ask the person that designed my thin mini-ITX risers. He also designed a bifurcated riser. That shouldn't be a problem for him ;)
However I would be a bit worried to run a power source on a PCB that doesn't have appropriate certifications.
 

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Kmpkt

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Just found the new darling of the open frame AC-DC power supply crowd:

https://www.mouser.com/ds/2/643/bcd.00879_aa_abc180_series-1116247.pdf

Also comes with matching enclosure (extra of course)

https://www.mouser.com/ds/2/643/bcd.00879_aa_abc180_series-1116247.pdf

I have ordered one and will be testing suitability for use with the KMPKT Dynamo Mini. While I understand the cost is high on this unit, if it works well I am planning to look at making a slight variant (120mm x 57mm x 25mm) that will hopefully be much cheaper due to the larger PCB size. Thoughts?
 

Thehack

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Just found the new darling of the open frame AC-DC power supply crowd:

https://www.mouser.com/ds/2/643/bcd.00879_aa_abc180_series-1116247.pdf

Also comes with matching enclosure (extra of course)

https://www.mouser.com/ds/2/643/bcd.00879_aa_abc180_series-1116247.pdf

I have ordered one and will be testing suitability for use with the KMPKT Dynamo Mini. While I understand the cost is high on this unit, if it works well I am planning to look at making a slight variant (120mm x 57mm x 25mm) that will hopefully be much cheaper due to the larger PCB size. Thoughts?

How will you be able to reduce the cost without doing a huge bulk/custom order?

And I don't think it's the size of the PCB that is causing the higher price, but rather the low profile components that keeps the board slim.

The Meanwell version of this is 30mm tall (1.25") and is much cheaper and easier to source a bulk order. I can imagine it being usable inside the S4MINI mini on either the motherboard or GPU side.
 

aquelito

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@Kmpkt : we talked about this one on the thin mini-itx riser thread and @Thehack spotted a pretty high ripple and noise rate.

EDIT : I forgot you're interested in the 24V variant, which seems in spec :)

Otherwise, you have a much cheaper Acbel 20V 10A AIO PSU available on eBay.
 
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Kmpkt

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Otherwise, you have a much cheaper Acbel 20V 10A AIO PSU available on eBay.

Any idea what the dimensions on the Acbel are? I don't think it's nearly as small as the one I'm purchasing. Also I'm looking at a production AC-DC solution out of this, so a one-off HP unit I can't reliably buy and resell isn't going to cut it unfortunately.

How will you be able to reduce the cost without doing a huge bulk/custom order?

I would reduce the cost by doing a huge bulk/custom order : )

The Meanwell version of this is 30mm tall (1.25") and is much cheaper and easier to source a bulk order. I can imagine it being usable inside the S4MINI mini on either the motherboard or GPU side.

It is, but I wouldn't be comfortable offering an open frame supply to the average user. Once you add an in-spec metal enclosure to the EPP-200-24, you're looking at a height of closer to 40mm and likely some increase in width. Starting with a smaller board and adding a custom enclosure (non-metal on contact surfaces) would likely allow a finished Z-height of around 25mm. The rough goal of what I am trying to see if I can do is to make two units fit on a 120mm fan mount adapter.

I forgot you're interested in the 24V variant, which seems in spec

Yep. The DC-DC units also smooth things out a bit I believe.

And I don't think it's the size of the PCB that is causing the higher price, but rather the low profile components that keeps the board slim.

It's true. The approach I am attempting to take is to see if multiple smaller modules (ie. inductors/caps) can be parallelized in such a way that smaller components can be used. I am not married to the industry standard of 101.6mm x 50.8mm, so I figure I can increase length by 15mm and width by 2-3mm and still meet my goals for size.
 
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Thehack

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Any idea what the dimensions on the Acbel are? I don't think it's nearly as small as the one I'm purchasing. Also I'm looking at a production AC-DC solution out of this, so a one-off HP unit I can't reliably buy and resell isn't going to cut it unfortunately.



I would reduce the cost by doing a huge bulk/custom order : )



It is, but I wouldn't be comfortable offering an open frame supply to the average user. Once you add an in-spec metal enclosure to the EPP-200-24, you're looking at a height of closer to 40mm and likely some increase in width. Starting with a smaller board and adding a custom enclosure (non-metal on contact surfaces) would likely allow a finished Z-height of around 25mm. The rough goal of what I am trying to see if I can do is to make two units fit on a 120mm fan mount adapter.



Yep. The DC-DC units also smooth things out a bit I believe. I'm e



It's true. The approach I am attempting to take is to see if multiple smaller modules (ie. inductors/caps) can be parallelized in such a way that smaller components can be used. I am not married to the industry standard of 101.6mm x 50.8mm, so I figure I can increase length by 15mm and width by 2-3mm and still meet my goals for size.

You are right that you'd be hitting a much larger dimension for the meanwell. It's 40mm x 62mm x 103mm for the chassis version of EPP-200. It would not fit in the S4 mini, and side by side it would be just 4mm over the 120mm fan size.

Seems like you got an interesting project in plan. But I do wonder how many uses it has and the overall consumer cost of the PSU. It seems like its going to be a very premium type of PSU.

Here is also something interesting:



This is the PS4 PSU rated for 200W on the 12V output.
 

aquelito

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Any idea what the dimensions on the Acbel are? I don't think it's nearly as small as the one I'm purchasing. Also I'm looking at a production AC-DC solution out of this, so a one-off HP unit I can't reliably buy and resell isn't going to cut it unfortunately.

You could ask directly Acbel about a bulk order. Reference is Acbel APE006.

I have the 180W @ 12V variant which measures 170 x 90 x 20 mm, including the enclosure :)
Can't say if the 19V has the same dimensions though.

Mine also has an "integrated switch".
You need to short the switch wire (green) with a GND to start the PSU, very much like Dell DA-2 adapters.



Right now I'm using it to run and test 12V stuff ; I'll be using it in a next thin ITX build with a MOSFET switch to turn it on/off.
 

Kmpkt

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Seems like you got an interesting project in plan. But I do wonder how many uses it has and the overall consumer cost of the PSU. It seems like its going to be a very premium type of PSU.

Honestly I'm half doing this because it is an interesting project and I need somewhere to bury pre-tax dollars because Canadian taxes are ghastly. I figure at best if I can get the 200W units down to 50-60 bucks each then I'll at the very least have a prosumer and high end enthusiast market to start. The hope then is that as volumes go up and costs go down, I can bring prices down for the end users.
 

CC Ricers

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that sounds like a good price point to me. This price excludes the enclosure, I'm guessing, and the larger PCB size is hopefully still small enough to fit inside the front of a Skyreach 4 Mini.
 

Kmpkt

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I would be designing this unit to fit inside the S4M specifically. The goal would be to have the units be daisy chain able in 200W increments with summing current up to three. If I can pull it off, one unit would give 180W (200 peak), two would give 360W (400 peak) and three would give 540W (600 peak). This would make them pair perfectly with the Dynamo Mini/HDPlex 160, Dynamo 360/HDPlex 400W DC-ATX and Dynamo Duo respectively.

Also I would be hoping to have a custom enclosure and full certification at this price point if things work out.
 
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