Anyone made an SFF using a a full sized ATX PSU as an external power brick?
I know a lot of people like the SFF for being able to chuck a fully self contained PC into a back pack etc, but in my case (pun intended), I'm more interested in squishing an emulation orientated PC into an upcycled SFF sized enclosure (A Matsui 6092*, to be precise) that wasn't meant to contain a PC in the first place, and getting the PSU out of the case entirely, as this means less heat, more space, and less 3d printing brackets etc.
So this got me wondering has anyone made themselves, or know of an off the shelf remote enclosure for an ATX psu? I really don't mind the size of the power brick in this case (well outside it), and using an ATX PSU means I won't be as restricted in terms of wattage. Also part of my goal here is re-use whatever I can and not buy new, and I have ATX PSU's lying around that I can re-purpose, whereas I don't have a HDPLEX or SFX psu just sitting in a drawer.
Now my thinking is there are three ways to approach this:
1) 3d print a PSU box (kind of optional I guess...), then run a reasonably gauged wire carrying the 12v and ground to an M2426, and split off part way for pci-e power. The M2426 can supply 200w to the board and cpu which should not be particularly limiting and pci-e power will be split off in front of the M2426 so it's powered directly by the psu. Downside despite being really easy, I'm trying not to buy stuff, and although this wouldn't be a big deal it kind of goes against the spirit of the build.
2) Skip the M2426, and instead consolidate the typical ATX connector down into the 9 distinct wire types by joining all the duplicated pins into a single big ass wire (so all the 12v pins into one wire, and so forth), heatshrink into one combined cable, then inside the case having a simple break out to split these back into the individual wires again. Downside, labour intensive joining and splitting wires, and my wife might notice if I steal part of the wring loom from her car so I can avoid having to make a 9 wire loom from scratch... Also will use some internal case space, although less than a psu, and I'm not entirely sure this is electrically feasible, I mean most PSU's use a single rail design as far as I'm aware, so I'd just be recombining the rails temporarily and then splitting them back up after, but is anyone with more knowledge able to confirm? What gauge wire am I likely to need for the 12v to go about a metre without too much resistance?
3) Just make a huge 32 wire extension cable for the ATX and PCI-E cables. Downsides... 32 wires to manage from a to b, labour intensive, and that cable after I've heatshrunk it is gonna be a chonk!
4) Ask on here and see if someone has a better idea
*If anyone is interested in what exactly a Matsui 6092 is, it's a one of these, and yes it will still have a screen (but not the CRT), and as much as possible I intend to repurpose all existing switches etc as much as possible.
I know a lot of people like the SFF for being able to chuck a fully self contained PC into a back pack etc, but in my case (pun intended), I'm more interested in squishing an emulation orientated PC into an upcycled SFF sized enclosure (A Matsui 6092*, to be precise) that wasn't meant to contain a PC in the first place, and getting the PSU out of the case entirely, as this means less heat, more space, and less 3d printing brackets etc.
So this got me wondering has anyone made themselves, or know of an off the shelf remote enclosure for an ATX psu? I really don't mind the size of the power brick in this case (well outside it), and using an ATX PSU means I won't be as restricted in terms of wattage. Also part of my goal here is re-use whatever I can and not buy new, and I have ATX PSU's lying around that I can re-purpose, whereas I don't have a HDPLEX or SFX psu just sitting in a drawer.
Now my thinking is there are three ways to approach this:
1) 3d print a PSU box (kind of optional I guess...), then run a reasonably gauged wire carrying the 12v and ground to an M2426, and split off part way for pci-e power. The M2426 can supply 200w to the board and cpu which should not be particularly limiting and pci-e power will be split off in front of the M2426 so it's powered directly by the psu. Downside despite being really easy, I'm trying not to buy stuff, and although this wouldn't be a big deal it kind of goes against the spirit of the build.
2) Skip the M2426, and instead consolidate the typical ATX connector down into the 9 distinct wire types by joining all the duplicated pins into a single big ass wire (so all the 12v pins into one wire, and so forth), heatshrink into one combined cable, then inside the case having a simple break out to split these back into the individual wires again. Downside, labour intensive joining and splitting wires, and my wife might notice if I steal part of the wring loom from her car so I can avoid having to make a 9 wire loom from scratch... Also will use some internal case space, although less than a psu, and I'm not entirely sure this is electrically feasible, I mean most PSU's use a single rail design as far as I'm aware, so I'd just be recombining the rails temporarily and then splitting them back up after, but is anyone with more knowledge able to confirm? What gauge wire am I likely to need for the 12v to go about a metre without too much resistance?
3) Just make a huge 32 wire extension cable for the ATX and PCI-E cables. Downsides... 32 wires to manage from a to b, labour intensive, and that cable after I've heatshrunk it is gonna be a chonk!
4) Ask on here and see if someone has a better idea
*If anyone is interested in what exactly a Matsui 6092 is, it's a one of these, and yes it will still have a screen (but not the CRT), and as much as possible I intend to repurpose all existing switches etc as much as possible.
