Concept DC MicroSolar System for ATX based computers

[Thehack]

Hello,

This is in the conceptual stage, but with a few products coming, I am working on a product based on solar and battery system. Here are the quick points

• DC 20V-48V ATX power supply
• A family of DC components to complete the system
• Designed to work with battery systems

Here are the scenarios:

You live in a camper van. Get rid of the bulky inefficient inverter + ATX power supply. Simplify it with a DCATX power supply that hooks straight into the battery system. 48V? No problem. 24V? Good here. 12V users need to not apply.

You live in somewhere with outrageous power cost. A 250W gaming/computing load, running about 4 hours a day, costs $1.00 in some areas in California. That's $360 a year! No problem. 400W panel leaning somewhere and a 1kwh battery can power you through most of the year, with a pay back time in 1-2 years.

You live in remote areas or places with spotty grid. Why get a complex inverter system just to get the DC to AC and back to DC again? What about power outages? You can buy overpriced unrepairable power stages or noisy generators, but a battery and simple DC-DC system is much more cost effective.

You're a mad scientist and you want your server rack to be complete grid-decoupled.

If this is something that interests you, please comment and let me know. I'd like to gather feedback on this project.

 

[Smole]

This sounds really interesting.
I build my SFF PC with one of the goals being the lowest possible power consumption (while retaining standardish parts for future upgrade). i'm at 170W peak for now.
Ideally i'd like to be able to plug it into basically any power source:
wall, LiPo battery pack, Lead-acid batteries (car, boat, glider/small plane? ). The idea being to maybe be able to power it thriugh solar if i take it on a camping/road trip.

Something like what you're prpposing is really interesting, especially if it is able to manage switching from battery power to 220V wall power by itself, like laptops do.
I would particularily be interested if it is on the smaller side of things.
Would it be inteded to connect to the motherboard/CPU through a pico PSU?

 

[Thehack]

This sounds really interesting.
I build my SFF PC with one of the goals being the lowest possible power consumption (while retaining standardish parts for future upgrade). i'm at 170W peak for now.
Ideally i'd like to be able to plug it into basically any power source:
wall, LiPo battery pack, Lead-acid batteries (car, boat, glider/small plane? ). The idea being to maybe be able to power it thriugh solar if i take it on a camping/road trip.

Something like what you're prpposing is really interesting, especially if it is able to manage switching from battery power to 220V wall power by itself, like laptops do.
I would particularily be interested if it is on the smaller side of things.
Would it be inteded to connect to the motherboard/CPU through a pico PSU?

Yes. There is a wide input 300W PSU coming out that will take 15-60V, that can be hooked up to any DC output. Ideally, you’d have:

1. DC-ATX PSU

2. LFP battery

3. Charge controller

One of the challenges for the DIYer is this not at all integrated to make it easy to hook everything up. On the other hand, you can get power stations, but they’re bulky and generally unrepairable.

We are trying to hit that spot or 1-5kwh systems that can be powered by a few panels.