need lots of power!!!

I have a sucessfull carputer, been going for 3 years, my brother owns the car now. i thought it was a challance intergrating a 10" screen now i want to intergrate $ 12" screens, this means more prossesing more ram and a real video card. the only cards that support 4 screens suck back 400w peek!!, granted im sure i will never go above 200w cosidering they take 70w just idling.

then the mobo ram and i5 processor and usb's will take another 140-200w just by them selves... so i need to cover about 500-600w in this car. can i stack the 250w units?


I reallly realllllllly dont wont to use a inverter :( i can get a perfect sine wave inverter and create a logic board to turn it on and off. but that just $$$$$$$ those perfect sine at work we deal with http://www.tundrainternational.com/en/pages/index and they have a pure perfect sine wave inverter that puts out 120v at 60hz at all times no matter what! offered in 300w 600w 1200w RMS so the 600w one on a 800w PSU would work really well with no noise. none at all. ever no matter what the car dose. but even at cost its flippin $600 for that one. :(


I would like a more elagent solution, something more intergrated that i can use to boot and go into suspend/hybernate.


Why am i putting in 4 12" screens into a car? why not!, i like challenges.

A more elegant solution...

Lower power consumption.

Purely dc supply else dc-dc converters (suited to whatever INPUT voltage range).


And define whe it is to operate - with the engine running? Or what reserve time without.
Your biggest problem is probably power, not how you convert that power/voltage.

If the screens have 12vDC input, you can probably power them w/ a number of 12v regulators.
And something along the lines of an M4 or Opus 360w for the PC.

The screens are a custom touch that I put togeather persomally, the dvi-to lvds board takes from 6-18V. So I won't be running it off of the carputer. I have another 200w dc-dc power supply I got from someone, it just a 12v one. So the screens will be running off of that. Man the controllers are awsome! They automatically adjust the screens. The screens are 12" screen out of some kind of sansung device, and at 500:w contrast ratio and 400mcd with a $50 touch overlay you can't complain. The whole screen only take 15w.

I thought that 360 was disscontinued? Got a link for one? Two piggicacked would work perfectly

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OldSpark

A more elegant solution...

Lower power consumption.

Purely dc supply else dc-dc converters (suited to whatever INPUT voltage range).


And define whe it is to operate - with the engine running? Or what reserve time without.
Your biggest problem is probably power, not how you convert that power/voltage.

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this is a carputer application and will be replacing my current guages, so yes with the engine running. lower power cosumption would be fantastic, but we dont get what we want sometimes. so i have to settle for finding a solution to my problems.

Well then, power consumption is not a problem is it? And hence efficiency wise, an AC inverter may be ok.

My point being that if consumption was an issue, then it's often cheaper or more elegant changing platforms.
But some will increase alternator size or add batteries etc etc so they can use "the cheaper"(??!) inverter solution.
Others will go dc-dc - especially if using battery reserve and wanting cranking ride-thru.
And not that many use sine inverters - most AC loads these days (being SMPS) are usually designed for a wide voltage range, and being sinusoid matters little.


But all that that was before you described the 15W screens etc...

well im not looking for the cheapest or easiest solution. im looking for the best solution to my problem. it can be solved many ways...

i respect any solution that is thrown my way. and im sure someone can think of something that im not getting here.

those sine inverters are far from cheap at about $1 per watt. i can get one from my supplier though(used but sertifies perfect with a damaged case) for $200 cash. then like i mentioned get a normal home psu for like $80...



this is all because i want to drive four screens, the screens i have a power supply for. so thats not a issue. however the power hungry monster is a video card.


I did nothing but research for the last week. i dont adk frivilus questions without first exploring avenues... every day every few hours at work and after work research research research. now what i found is that one of the best(and worst) solutions is a ati(amd) Firepro card, most of the firepro cards only take 15-100w of power. which would do away with all of this!, but i cant find anyone that has one that i can play with. its a much weaker card but more bullet proof. the proble is that most of the software out there dose not deal with "spanned" screens well. i can have my guages appear in screen 3 if its part of one big screen....

i need 4 separate screen, i need for arguments and ease of calulations sake lets say 1900x1200 times 4. not one 7600x1200 screen thats split across four windows. when you drag a application into one screen and maximize it i need it to maximize in that window. in spanned applications it will maximize into the main window. not the one you have it dragged to.

it seems like these magic(but expensive) video cards the firepro ones like the http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16814195107 and http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...FirePro%202460 both support 4 screens but they use eyefinity... and in my research eyefinity spans the screens. :(



im told from talking to the evga guys that the geforce 660 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130826 dose not(450watts) and would work ok for what im doing. however im not sure. :( i dont want to invest into a 600w psu and a 600w inverter at a cost of $300 and find out that well crap... it wont work anyway.


then from more research i find a link to the Galaxy MDT GeForce GTX 570... http://www.directcanada.com/products...y%20Technology and looks like it can be setup the way i want but its massive :( and no one i know has one.



now you know why i need the power and what my challanges are.


I know the complications with the modified sine inverters and i want to avoid them at all costs. hell i have 2 400w and one 1200w inverters just sitting here that i would never use for this. i remember the issues that you guys where having 4 years ago, back when 150w was the max! thats why i looked at the sine. at the time i didnt get them at cost. now ive built up a good repore with the salesmen of that company(over three years) just so if i need to i can get one.


do you know if i can stack two Opus 360w or two to three M4-ATX 250w (http://www.itxcanada.com/products/M4...er-598-59.html) ?????? as in have one main unit that dose the startup shut down and one acting as a slave? and bridge the output(maybe with some diodes so there is no feedback)?

if you want to double up the opus 360's or the m4's just get this little gem from the mp3car store they work excellent for load sharing or stacking power supplies. SNO http://store.mp3car.com/Mini_Box_Y_P..._p/pwr-046.htm

haha, yea thats what i was going to make! lol, jut i guess i'd have to get two. one for the 12v rail and one for the 5v rail.


but looks like i'd burn it out. each 360w psu is 30a each! so thats max peek output of 60a thanks, i'll probably give it a shot.

found this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeiT6IfvaKU

much smaller card looks like it might work.