external molex power

[ikonia]

I'm sure some of you modders have made this before, or maybe even know of a place to buy one.

i've would like to make a power unit that would power one or two molex conections external to a PC either powered off mains or even better powered off batteries.

Have any of you done/seen anything like this before ?

What sort of results have you had ?

thanks,

[Dougal]

Yup.

These are available off the shelf (but expensive) as part of kits to make a 3.5" internal into a USB external drive.

Its a latop style powersupply with the end cut off and replaced with molexes as some laptop psu's provide Gnd, +5V +7V and +12V

Look for laptop PSUs opn ebay, check the specs then fiddle.

[ikonia]

anything in the way of "batter powered ?

I'm also looking at an idea of a power button between the molex and the device so I can run a spare molex out of the back of my chassis to a light, but turn it on off with a switch ?

Anything on those two ideas ?

[Dougal]

Battery powered should be fairly easy

Get 10 rechargeable batteries (I have a few 12V rechargeable packs which charge too if your interested) and you'll get 12V and 0V lines.

You'll need to work out the resistance V = IR for the 7 and 5V memory

[ikonia]

dougal, you sound like your on it with this. Can you spell it out a bit as my electric skills suck.

I get what your saying in that just attatch the cables to the batteries, however I would have thought there needed to be something in between.

is this a bad idea eg: will I get about 30 seconds power out of it

I'm still keen to so something feeding a spare molex out of the back of the PC

[herulach]

What are you trying to run? You may not need to bother with the 5V line, in which case youre golden, although id reccomend a lead acid battery rather than ordinary alkalines or something as youll get more life out of it. If you do need 5V then please use a voltage regulator (LM3914 IIRC but prob not) rather than resistors, which are liable to set on fire if you draw too much power through them, and also will give you slightly wrong voltage.

[Dougal]

The life you'll get out of it depends on what your running.

[ikonia]

very very interesting.

I'm not having another thought.

What about a molex "pass through" eg: say a kettle lead to a ketter could I put a pass through so the kettle lead plugs into a 2 device molex output then that plugs into the kettle .....

just thinking outloud.

I'm looking to power a couple of lights, nothing more

[Dougal]

The kettle lead produces 230V AC, molexes 5V, 7V, 12V DC.

Don't mix em. Big bang will happen.

Do you have the specs for the lights?

[herulach]

The kettle lead produces 230V AC, molexes 5V, 7V, 12V DC.

Don't mix em. Big bang will happen.

Do you have the specs for the lights?

Molex plugs dont have a 7V pin, 2 grounds (black) a 12V (yellow) and a 5V (red) Again, what are you powering? There will almost certainly be abetter way of powering it than using molex connectors. If its CCFL lights then you can get mains transformers for them, although your best bet for any period of time would be to wire up a permenant solution using a wall wart/brick style psu (around 800ma /ccfl)

[Dougal]

Sorry, I have some molexes I rewired to 7V in my system. For the fans.

[ikonia]

ok, found some links to the products I purchased for testing, these looks pretty much the same ones I purchased

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/LEDs.html

Sunbeam HLE-BL-B Hyper Light
Sunbeam LB-G Laser
Sunbeam Laser LED


I don't want to power them all at once I got a couple of each for testing.

[MiNiMaL_FuSS]

Just get a variable plug adapter.

ie it plus into a mains and you can choose to out put 5-24 volts.

i use one to power my cathodes in my stack system.

[herulach]

They are all 12 volts, so get yourself down to maplins, get either a 8 AA battery pack, or a 12volt lead acid battery, some equipemnt wire, a couple of molex connectors and a soldering iron if you have nt got one (solder too of course) should take you all of about 10 minutes.

red (+) battery terminal to where the yellow wire would go, black (-/gnd) to where the black one would go, wire it allup and youre golden.

[UltraMagnus]

anything in the way of "batter powered ?

is that some kind of new energy generation system



uhm, now seriously, i am in the process of making somthing like this myself, basically its just a old AT psu shoved in a big case with molex connectors on the side.

if you want it battery powered that could be alot more complicated, seeing as standard batteries (AA, AAA, AAAA) types give out 1.5v it wouldnt be hard to get 12v, however that could have problems with the voltage dropping with the condition of the battery, a better way would be to 10 AA batteries and design a circuit using a voltage regulator

[dinoprime]

if you want to power a molex from yr pc have u looked at maplins.

they do a 3.5 bay molex power output, so u get a molex and a fdd output on the front of yr pc

3.5 in bay pow conct A95CB 5.99

but if u want battery, go for a sealed lead acid unit, i use to build model boats and these lasted for ages running 2 12v motors and loads of led lights

but the simplest thing would be to run a molex extension out the back of yr pc thru a slot