Thread: My low cost, easy to build power supply...

Originally Posted by Zebelkhan

This was a fun thread to read....and congrats man. You never gave up and finally did your thing. Good for you!

I also then ended up using a sproggy powersupply to run the PC... I think... hell!!! I cant even remember anymore!!! HAHAHA!!!

oh, I know... I made a custom wooden case, and used a sproggy in that, but never installed it in the car I dont think...

that PC went on a holiday, and took 50 degree celcius heat with no worries, not to mention, the case had bugger all ventilation, and it would have been getting close to 60 degrees ambient inside the case...

hmm

Originally Posted by skinnyboy

Well, I have now sorta made the supply it has the power good line, and it works, but I don't have a power supply able to give high enough current at about 14volts...
any ideas of what I should do???

There is no reason why this wouldn't work, the regulator chips can opperate at upto 125 degrees celcius, and I don't think they will get that hot only powering a P100...

Hi SkinnyBoy

I really admire your initiative, keep up the good work!

This is probably not the best place in the forum to post this, but perhaps someone could guide me in the correct direction.

Does anyone in the forum have any experience with a P3 (or P4) based PC running off solar power? We are using Mikrotik Routerboards (www.mikrotik.com and www.routerboard.com) which are single-sided computers, similar to Pentium 266's. The only problem with them is the limitation of 14mbps due to low CPU power. In order to get true 54mbps throughput (all interfaces together) you need at least a P3 800MHz (I'm not 100% sure about the processor though). What I would like to do, is implement P4 Celeron 3GHz's or as a test run perhaps VIA C3 800MHz PC's. The problem is this, I have no idea how much power such a device would consume. Using 2x RB112 or RB532's with 2 Wireless cards each (total of 4x miniPCI 802.11a/b/g cards) we use 2x 80W Solar Panels charging (in parallel) a single 96a/H car battery.

I would like to setup a new highsite with 8 wireless interfaces. This would be relatively easy making use of Routerboards, problem still being limitation of bandwidth.

If someone could guide me on how much power such a PC would consume, say P4 Celeron 3GHz, and how much power (at worst conditions, ie full bandwidth all the time) these 802.11a/b/g (CM9 or R52 Mikrotik Cards) cards would use, I would REALLY appreciate it stax. BTW, we'll be using CF (Compact Flash) cards running of IDE modules, so we won't have to power harddrives too. The PC need about 512MB RAM (if that makes a difference).

We surely don't have money growing on tree's, but we are prepared to invest a little, if not too much.

Thanks for all your help to this regard.