Dynamo Mini 160 - why 16-24V?

mini.m

Case Bender
Original poster
Nov 4, 2018
2
1
I just prepare myself to change my i7-3770K with GF 780Ti in huge case Xigmatek Elysium to AMD APU in HDPLEX H1.S V2 for my needs 160W PSU will be more than enough. I done some research and I found:
www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-160-XT - 12V input, no heatsink, 31x53x15mm
https://streacom.com/products/nano160-fanless-psu/ - 12V input, no heatsink, 54 x 37x 18mm
Dynamo mini 160 - 16V-24V input, heatsink, 36.05mm x 61.2mm x 24.7mm
https://www.hdplex.com/hdplex-160w-dc-atx-power-supply-16v-24v-wide-range-voltage-input.html - 16-24V input, heatsink, 41.2(H) x 61(W) x 34.7(D) mm

and my question is why you choose higher input V which need to be converted down which generates heat so you put heatsink to fight with it making PSU slightly bigger ?
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
3,382
5,935
There are two major reasons to use the 16-24V wide input as opposed to a native 12V input. The first and probably largest is that there is already a really significant ecosystem of 19V DC bricks on the market all the way up to 330W and beyond due to their use in laptops. 12V bricks, especially high quality and high wattage ones, are much harder to come by. When considering internal/open frame AC-DC adapters, if you can get it in 12V, you can likely get it in a 24V variant as well. While there is some additional heat produced by the 19V-12V conversion it is at least partially offset by the fact that downconverting wall power to 12V is typically 1-2% less efficient than converting to 19V or 24V on the AC-DC end of things. Also, generally speaking the amount of heat produced by these DC-DC units is not huge as they operate (at least in the case of KMPKT and HDPlex units) at >94% efficiency.

The second significant reason for selecting 16-24V is that with 19V (as an example) you can move a rated maximum approximately 150W peak per Minifit connector (8A x 19V). When using 12V that number is only 96W. What this means is that, by an large, you will need to use more wires to run a native 12V system than you will a native 19V system in and around the wattages we work with in the SFF community. Obviously this means you will need to use 6 pin connectors instead of 4 pin connectors or 8 pin connectors in the place of 6 pin connectors at crucial junctions. Case in point is the 4 pin MiniFit connector for DC-IN on the Dynamo Mini would almost certainly need to be a 6 pin if it were direct 12V.
 

mini.m

Case Bender
Original poster
Nov 4, 2018
2
1
Thank you very much for that exhaustin answer everything is now clear for me and also you probably bought me, now I just waiting for new model of HDPlex to compare them with Dynamo mini visual wise and buy. Thank you
 
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